Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If there is anything worse than being a high school student, I have yet to find it. And if you’re anything like me, you would agree. My name is Percy Jackson, son of Sally Jackson, and a senior in high school who just missed almost a whole year of school. Now, you’re probably wondering, “Wow, how does a kid manage to miss almost an entire year of school?” To answer that, I’d say getting kidnapped by your immortal cow of an aunt and forced to fight a war against giants does that to your attendance record.

And now you’re thinking, “Wow, his mom’s sister is immortal? Does that mean your mom is a goddess?” While you could very well mistake my mother for being a goddess, sadly, the godly part of my family comes from my dad’s side.

Let’s start this introduction over now that I've cleared up some of your confusion. My name is Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, and savior of Olympus (twice). Despite my ever-growing list of accomplishments in the demigod world, my academic achievements are ever dwindling. That’s why I’m currently poring over Shakespeare on the subway home from AHS, desperately trying to pass my senior year so I can go to college with my girlfriend, Annabeth, in New Rome next year.

If you’ve ever had to study on a subway, I know you can sympathize with my pain. With my wonderful combo of ADHD and dyslexia (thanks, Dad), I was not having a good time trying to focus on the Macbeth in front of me. And the creepy old lady staring at me wasn’t helping.

The train doors next to me started to close as we prepared to head to the next stop. I took a break from my schoolwork to look up at the two people who had just gotten on. Both were boys around my age. One was a conventionally good-looking guy—tall and blond—while the other was almost comically short, barely coming up to his friend’s elbow. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen them before.

Directly across from me, the old lady I was still not entirely convinced wasn’t a monster looked up again. She had thin, gray hair pulled back into a low ponytail at the base of her neck. Her dark brown, horn-rimmed glasses were much too large for her face, and she wore a faded, stringy knit cardigan over an old black Beatles tee. Every couple of minutes, she would glance up from the gray, malformed ball of yarn she was knitting, smack her lips together, and look back down at her work.

“Is there something wrong, ma’am?” I tried to ask politely after another piercing glance was shot my way. Her gaze felt as though she was looking directly through me, and my creepy-old-lady sense was starting to tingle.

She scrutinized me as though I were her next knitting project. After a few awkward seconds of eye contact, she rasped out, “Oh, nothing, young man. It's just that I feel I have seen you before, but I can’t quite seem to place your face.”

Her voice was scratchy and gravelly, like each word was being rubbed on sandpaper. I tensed slightly in my seat and swallowed thickly.

Any second now, I thought. Any second, she’s going to sprout bat wings and throw herself at me.

Anyone else would have thought they were being paranoid for fearing an old lady, but my track record with old women wasn’t great. Especially ones with weird knitting projects. Luckily, I didn’t have to sit in fear much longer because two large hellhounds came crashing through the doors at the end of the car.

The two boys near the door jumped to their feet in a panic. In their scramble to get away from the massive, slobbery dogs, the shorter guy tripped. All thoughts of secrecy flew out the window as I leaped to my feet, my right hand fishing in my jeans pocket for my trusty ballpoint pen, Riptide.

Screams filled the subway car as passengers scrambled to get away. I uncapped the pen, and a three-foot, bronze, leaf-shaped blade took its place. A few muffled gasps of confusion came from the crowd, followed by some less than quiet mutterings about me being “one of them.”

Great. This situation just kept getting better.

But there were too many people in danger for me to worry about exposure. I’d deal with the consequences later. Their lives were more important.

The first hellhound lunged at the boy still sprawled on the floor. I surged forward, slashing diagonally at the mutt’s head. My blade connected with a satisfying thwack, cutting straight through it. I shook the golden dust off Riptide and whirled around to face the second one just as it prepared to leap at me.

Before it could jump, the train screeched to a halt, knocking me off balance. The mutt lunged forward, forgetting the boy on the floor, and sank its teeth into my shoulder. Together, we tumbled to the ground, twisting as we fell to avoid the seats on either side of us. My sword clattered out of my hand, sliding under the seats to my right.

I glanced around frantically, my eyes landing on a half-empty water bottle lying on the floor with its lid open. Desperately, I stretched my left hand toward it, summoning the water toward me with a familiar wrench in my gut. I launched the water straight into the hellhound’s gaping maw just as it came down, throwing it off of me.

Staggering to my feet, I reached into my pocket and found Riptide had returned to pen form. I uncapped it, sending a hot wave of pain through my shoulder. I need ambrosia, and fast. 

Gritting my teeth, I quickly raised Riptide and brought it down on the hellhound’s prone body. It dissolved into golden dust.

The subway car had gone eerily silent. The kid who had been attacked was being pulled to his feet by his friend. A couple sitting nearby stared at me, eyes wide. A father moved his two kids behind him, watching me warily.

I let out a nervous chuckle and forced a smile. “Everyone okay?”

No answer.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman reach for her phone and start dialing. Panicked, I knocked it out of her hand. “NO!”

The woman flinched and reached into her purse. Quickly, I backed away, murmuring apologies. The train was spinning in my vision, and the edges of my sight darkened. Was I poisoned? No—hellhounds weren’t venomous.

with a nervous smile, I capped Riptide and slowly made my way to the doors of the train which had been opened when the train stopped. I took a step backwards, exiting the train and dropping down onto the tracks below.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I muttered as I stumbled to the station. “I couldn’t let anyone get hurt.” I said to myself, trying to reassure myself that I had made the right choice.

Finally, I stepped onto the platform, the people giving the bleeding kid who had just crawled out of the subway tunnel a wide berth. I pushed through the crowd, up the stairs, and out onto the street. My apartment was only a few blocks away, I could make it.

I just need to get home before something else tries to kill me. I thought.  I should be able to make it as long as I don’t get attacked again. The next ten minutes passed in a hazy blur. I tried to stay on the back streets, occasionally cutting through an alley or two to avoid the nosy, prying gaze of my fellow New Yorkers.

Ever since I returned from the second Gigantomachy, life hasn’t been the same for me—or any demigod, for that matter. In hindsight, it was pretty hopeful of us to assume that mortals didn’t notice the Gates of Death being open. I mean, people couldn’t die. They were bound to notice.

But what none of us ever expected was the widespread sightings of monsters and demigods by normal people. Annabeth and I had many conversations about what had changed to make mortals start seeing through the Mist. The theory we came up with was that while the gods had been dealing with the schism between their Roman and Greek selves, the magic surrounding the Greco-Roman world had started to weaken, allowing mortals without clear sight to begin seeing through. While we didn’t completely understand the details surrounding the schism, it was our best guess as to what had changed.

Camp Half-Blood, which used to be our only safe haven from monsters, had now become our only safe haven from mortals too. The government had started to take notice of demigods, and they had traced our actions back to the Manhattan incident from a couple years ago.

Apparently, a few clear-sighted mortals had spoken up about the massive, vicious storm that had terrorized the East Coast as not being a complete freak storm. They had put out notices to report demigods or anyone who seemed to have a connection to the supernatural world. Officially, their reason for wanting to meet demigods was to learn more about the supernatural and divine world and cooperate, but no demigod was going to take the chance to find out if that was true.

And as if fate hadn’t screwed our world over enough recently, demigods had started to go missing. Gone, without a trace. No sign from anyone, not even their family.

I climbed the last step to my apartment door and reached into my pocket to grab my keys. I shoved them in the lock and turned it, wincing.

“Percy? Is that you?” my mom called from within.

“Yeah!” I called back.

“Good, I was starting to get worried with how long you were gone!”

I pursed my lips and responded, “Uh, yeah, I’m all good. I just-I just need to go finish my homework.”

“All right,” responded my mother with some uncertainty. “Just be finished by dinner. We're having Alfredo!”

I hummed a sound of acknowledgment and attempted to quietly sneak up the hallway to my room. I turned the corner, and ran face-first into my mother, blocking the hallway and holding a wet rag and some bandages in her hand.

“Let me see it,” she said, looking down at me disapprovingly.

Sighing in defeat, I moved my hand away from my shoulder and pulled off my hoodie. I hissed in pain as the fabric pulled against the wound, causing my mom to give me a worried look. With the hoodie out of the way, she examined the jagged bite marks on my shoulder with concern and sympathy.

“I wish you would find a way to get home without getting attacked,” she admonished.

“Yeah, me too,” I said tiredly.

With a sigh, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a small square of ambrosia, and handed it to me. I took it from her hand and put it into my mouth, closing my eyes as I savored the comforting flavor of my mom’s freshly baked, homemade blue cookies washing over me like a warm hug.

I felt a warm, wet pressure on my shoulder, causing me to tense. My mom looked up, concerned.

“Try to hold still for me, honey.”

I nodded numbly and gritted my teeth. She gently dabbed the cloth around the mark, cleaning it as painlessly as she could. She pulled back the cloth, nodded at her work, and then carefully pressed a bandage over the wound. Stepping back, she inspected her work before letting out a satisfied sigh.

“All right, why don’t you see how much of your homework you can get through before Paul gets home and we eat, okay?”

I nodded, a small grin finding its way onto my face. “I’ll try. Thanks, Mom.”

She smiled and pulled me into a warm hug. I wrapped my arms around her back and buried my head in her neck. No one gave better hugs than my mom. Just being around her made me relax and feel safe. She deserved everything, and to be treated like a queen. Thankfully, Paul seemed to think so too.

I pulled back after a couple of moments. She reached up and ruffled my already untidy hair before stepping away to return to her delicious chicken Alfredo simmering on the stove.

Feeling significantly better than I had in days, I opened the door to my room and threw my bag on the floor next to my desk. I flopped down and laid my head back with a sigh. I glanced up at the calendar, every passing day marked with a red line, counting down to summer, friends, Camp Half-Blood, and Annabeth. Smiling, I reached into my backpack, pulled out my English textbook, and got ready to suffer through Macbeth’s suffering for the next couple of hours.

The next day at school could not have gone slower if it had tied bowling balls to its feet and broken both of its knees.

By seventh period, I stared up at a whiteboard filled with confusing math equations, my eyes heavy and glazed over. Shockingly, I had not finished my homework before dinner and had to stay up late finishing my essay. Running on three hours of sleep and a Red Bull was not great for my focus.

Mrs. Brent had just finished going over whatever homework assignment had been due today that I hadn’t gotten around to the night before. She glanced at me with a frustrated expression. Her mouth opened as though to ask a question, but the bell rang, saving me from embarrassing myself. I quickly packed up and moved toward the door, only to be stopped by one of the most annoying little gnomes I knew.

Caleb Franz must be one of my least favorite people in the world. He was short, ginger, squat, and always wore a ratty red beanie, no matter the weather. On top of that, he never had anything useful or nice to say. Safe to say, I would rather go skydiving with a porcupine strapped to me than talk to him. But today, he must have been feeling particularly annoying.

Caleb looked up at me with an inquisitive look—an expression that must have been pretty hard for him.

He let out a wet snort before asking, “Hey! Jackson! Were you that freak with the sword on the subway yesterday?”

I froze, a feeling of dread washing over me. Of course, just my luck. The guy who had been attacked by the hellhound was Caleb.

“Uh, no, I don’t-I don’t take the subway home,” I said quickly.

Caleb narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing me like I was a McDouble he was checking for onions. “No, you were! I could never make the mistake of thinking your ugly mug was anyone else’s!”

I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “Well, I guess you need to update your prescription,” I said, pushing past him toward my locker.

I heard snickers from behind me. Caleb called out, “Ha! So you are one of those freaks? Should I report you to the ASPB?”

I just need to get home before something else tries to kill me, I thought, trying to block Caleb out and focus on the rest of my day.

I took another deep breath to calm myself and turned to head toward my locker. Caleb was full of Minotaur crap, and I knew it. He wouldn’t actually call the ASPB (Administration of Supernatural Persons Bureau). He was too stupid to dial the number. It was fine. I was fine. I was going to be fine. I was going to finish this week of school, and then I was going to go to Camp Half-Blood, get into a prank war with the Stolls, win some Capture the Flag games, cause chaos with Nico, maybe help out some younger campers, and see Annabeth. Nothing was going to stop that from happening.

There were no world-ending prophecies this summer for me to get wrapped into. I was going to relax and be a normal camper with my friends for once in my life. Get to experience the first summer with the Romans and the Greeks at peace in decades. And no one, especially an angry little gnome, was going to stop me from enjoying that.

Chapter Text

One week earlier

I, Poseidon, Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses, God of the Sea, and one of the Big Three, was currently getting scolded by a bunch of old ladies who can’t knit socks properly. My younger, much pissier brother Zeus was standing to my left, getting yelled at by his old lady daughters right along with me. It was his fault I was in this situation anyway. I had been minding my own business, as usual, before my nephew Hermes had all but attacked me with an envelope, yelling something about urgent letters, rats… and lecterns? In hindsight, I now realize he had said Alecto, one of my older (much more likable) brother’s demon bat-lady torturers. I was a little overwhelmed, okay?

I realize if you have no idea who any of these people are, I sound incredibly insane right now. And I’ve decided I don’t care. I am insane—being a couple thousand years old does that to you. And you would be too if you were related to Zeus. It was at this moment that I realized I probably should have been paying attention to the conversation happening in front of me.

“What?” Zeus said indignantly. “You can’t do that! I am Zeus! King of the Gods!”

The Morai let out a weird, raspy, harmonized chuckle together. Eugh, the Morai always give me the creeps. I mean, no one likes weaving that much.

“Oh, Father! You forget your place,” said Clotho, the weaver of the thread of life.
Thunder rumbled above us ominously.

“No, I think you forget yours. Who are you to tell me how to rule? How to treat our children?” Zeus thundered.

“It becomes our place when your failure to take action begins messing with our threads,” said Lachesis.

I raised my head at that. “Messing with your strings? How are we doing that?” I asked, confused.

The Fates all looked at each other, then answered in their creepy, harmonizing voices. “Gods have always been less under the control of our threads than mortals. Your fates might be woven by us, but it is up to you to choose what happens in between.”

Zeus growled (he does that a lot, you get used to it), “Of course we do, I know that!”

Lachesis sighed. “You're not directly changing the threads of mortals, but your choices in your own string are affecting their lives.”

“Yes, imagine that your threads are crossing with those of your children, covering sections of their fate from view,” Atropos continued.

“Normally, this is fine. It does not change anything significant in their stories. It changes minor things—relationships, abilities, or sometimes even their time of death. Minor things all the same. Things that do not change their fate,” Lachesis added.

“But your inaction during the second Gigantomachy has cut many threads too early. And not just demigods—mortals too,” Atropos finished.

“And what will you have us do, Morai?” Zeus replied angrily.

The Fates let out an eerie chuckle. “Why, we would have you fix it. Reweave it. Change the story into something that brings a satisfying conclusion to the stories of the thousands of mortals affected by your failure to rule.”

I felt my skin start to prickle uncomfortably. What could they mean by that? Were we to ignore the ancient rules? The ones they helped set?

“And how do I fit into this?” I asked, cutting the silence like a knife would a cord.

The Morai turned their eyes toward me. “Why, you are there to help teach Zeus a lesson!” they almost shrieked.

“A lesson? What can I teach Thunderpants over there? You'll need a drill to get anything into his head.”

Zeus whipped his head over and glared at me, a scathing retort surely on his tongue, I’m sure. Lucky for his ego, he didn’t get the words out, as the Fates interrupted again.

“I’m sure the two of you will find a way. After all, you’ll need to.”

The creepy grins of my old lady nieces were the last thing I saw before a bright flash of light enveloped us. The next thing I saw after the light disappeared was the concrete hurtling towards me much faster than I felt it should be allowed. I would like to say that I handled this situation with the grace and poise you would assume I would have as a god, but I would be lying—and I am truly an awful liar.

I let out a very dignified shriek as I plummeted towards the ground, bracing for the wonderful feeling of eating concrete. But it never came, because instead of landing on the ground in an undignified heap, I landed on top of a pizza delivery boy in an undignified heap. Me and Pizza Boy crashed to the floor, his pizza box flying out of his hand and skidding into a pile of trash by a building.

I rolled off the guy and groaned. It suddenly occurred to me that I should probably see if my landing cushion was okay, since in my experience most mortals didn’t do well with getting landed on.

I crawled to my feet and stumbled over to where the guy was sprawled out on the floor, pizza thrown to the wind. For a second, I feared the worst—that I had accidentally killed a guy by falling out of the sky onto him. But then I heard him groan. Good, just a serious concussion, then. If I was lucky, he wouldn’t remember this ever happening. I promptly decided that I should probably get out of there before someone saw me and called the police for murder.

I ran deeper into the alley, hoping for a way out onto the street so I could figure out where I was. As I ran, I processed what had just occurred. Somehow, the gods—namely Zeus—had been interfering in the threads of our demigod children and mortals alike. The Morai had decided that Zeus needed to fix his problems—which was fair. Then, they decided that I needed to be there so Zeus could fix his problems—which was less fair. Zeus did what Zeus wanted when he wanted. I don’t know what the Morai were thinking, sending me along. The only thing I do is make him angrier than he already is. And now, because of Zeus’ idiocy, I was running through an alley in the middle of New York, probably without even a drop of ichor in my blood. Well, okay, maybe a drop. It’s not like this is my first time getting smited (or is it smote?) down to Earth to learn a lesson. Though the last time was before the Trojan War, I could still tell I wasn’t completely mortal, like I had been when I had to build that stupid wall.

I turned a corner and started walking toward the end of the alley. I would get out of here, find out where I was, and then go and find my son, Percy. That was going to be my best course of action. Oh, and try to find Zeus, I guess I should probably put that in there somewhere.

Thankfully the fates didn’t hate me as much as I thought they did, because they helped speed along the finding Zeus process. Which was probably for the best, it wasn’t very high on my to do list.

Hiding behind a small trash can was my younger brother and king of the gods, crouched down with a rotten banana peel on his head. I stifled a laugh, though apparently not very well, as he turned to glare at me. A hissing sound interrupted whatever Zeus was going to say next, causing him to whip his head back so fast he must have gotten whiplash.

“Get down! They’ll see you!” Zeus whisper-yelled at me.

I barely heard him; I was more preoccupied with staring blankly at him, my brain trying to rationalize what I was seeing. Sitting in front of me in a panicked heap was my brother, but not a version of him I had seen in centuries. In place of his usual black hair and beard was a shorter and wavier mess of blond locks ending just below his chin, and a young, clean-shaven face. Apparently, he must have been having similar thoughts about my appearance, as he paused in his frantic whispering to gawk at me.

“What happened to your face?” he asked me, alarmed.

“What happened to yours?” I bit back.

I reached a hand up and touched my face. Yep, I was different too. My jawline was smooth, without my usual beard lining it. My hand traveled higher to my hair—different too. Instead of the straighter hair I had been donning for the last couple of decades, my hair had returned to its original mess of waves and curls.

A hissing sound snapped us out of our stupor, and I dropped into a crouch next to Zeus. I also decided to take pity on him and remove the banana peel from his head like a good older brother.

“If that is what I think it is, it doesn't matter that we're hiding,” I whispered to Zeus. “Basilisks, right?”

He pursed his lips before he nodded, obviously realizing his error.

“Zeus,” I whispered, still crouching despite our realization, “they can smell us anyway.”

He turned his head to me slowly, with that expression you wear when you know you did something dumb but are too far in to stop, and looked at me blankly.

“Well,” he hissed, “you have a better idea? Or better yet, a weapon we can use?”

“Nope,” I said, popping the ‘p.’

“Well then, I don’t want to hear it,” he said with a tone of finality.

“They’re going to find us anyway.”

“Shut up,” Zeus said, annoyance growing on his face.

“We’re going to die in an alleyway to trash snakes.”

“I'll personally make sure no one finds your body,” he fired back.

“And how will you do that? You’re going to die too.”

Whatever Zeus was going to say had to wait, because at that moment the trash snake spat a column of fire at us. We both dived to the side, narrowly avoiding the flames that had singed the brick wall behind us. I leapt to my feet, grabbing whatever was closest to me to use as a weapon.

“Just my luck,” I muttered, looking down at the chipped plastic recorder in my hand.
The basilisk was now slithering toward where Zeus had floundered (heh, flounder). Not giving myself time to think about how incredibly unsanitary the recorder in my hand was, I brought it up to my mouth and blew. The snake recoiled (as anyone who has had to listen to someone play a recorder would) away from Zeus, giving him enough time to leap to his feet and put some space between himself and the scaly serpent.

I dropped the recorder on the ground—my mouth now feeling very unclean—and sent up a quick prayer of thanks to Apollo for demonstrating how awful of an instrument the recorder was to me multiple times.

I looked down at the open trash bag the recorder had come from and located a broken golf club, which was much more suitable for beating trash snakes with. I looked back over to where Zeus was, now on top of a dumpster to get away from the basilisk, who was still recovering from my recorder skills.

“Hey! Garbage noodle!” I yelled at the snake, readying my fierce 5-iron for combat.

I locked eyes with Zeus and glanced at the empty dumpster under him. He nodded in acknowledgment, seeming to understand what I was thinking. With a bout of true impulsivity that Percy would have been proud of, I ran forward toward a fire-breathing, venomous snake with a broken golf club as my only weapon. The snake reared back, preparing to launch another blast of flame at me.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Zeus climb off the dumpster, open its lid, and grab a different trash can lid from the wall. Good, glad to know he hadn’t lost the ability to read my idiotic plans over the years.

The column of flame erupted from the mouth of the garbage noodle, and I hastily threw myself to the side, dodging the blaze. Quickly, I countered with a swing of my club, stunning the surprisingly hefty snake. I let go of my club once it made contact, and it disintegrated in the air as it touched the basilisk.

Zeus, armed with his garbage can Aegis, shoved the dumpster over onto the snake. He dropped the trash can lid quickly and recoiled back as the dumpster tumbled on top of the snake. We made eye contact and nodded before turning tail and running toward the end of the alley. The dumpster wasn’t going to hold long, and neither of us was eager to find out just how long it could.

We emerged from the alley within sight of the Queensboro Bridge, and I couldn’t help but perk up a bit when I noticed. If we were where I thought we were, Percy and Sally lived nearby. Maybe, if we—mainly me—played our cards right, we could get some help. now I just had to find a way to get Zeus there without telling him who we were going to.

I looked over at Zeus, who had stopped just short of the road, leaning over with his hands on his knees, breathing hard. I stopped next to him to catch my breath as well. He looked up at me as we stopped.

“Well,” he said, slightly out of breath, “do you know what is happening?”

“The Morai said something about correcting what we broke, and then smittened us down to Earth. So I assume there is something that will come up that we have to do,” I replied.

Zeus looked at me with concern. “Did you just say smittened? You mean smited?”

“What are you, the tense police? Why not smote, then?”

“Because smote sounds bad, it's not that complicated, Poseidon.”

“Well, smittened is a good middle ground then.”

“No, because I’m not smittened with people I’m smiting!” he shot back.
“Really? Could have fooled me,” I countered.

Before our bickering could continue, Zeus cut me off. “Enough, we need to focus. From what I have gathered, I assume we are waiting for a prophecy.” He said gruffly.

I sighed, annoyed, but shook my head in agreement. “Though I don’t know what they want us to do, they turned us into mortals.”

“Knowing the Fates, it's probably a test of sorts. They turn us mortal and force us to find a way to get our divinity back to build character or whatever they’re going on about.”

I hummed in response, lost in thought about how we were to get my divinity back.

“Do you think we could just break into Olympus?” I suggested. “Apollo still owes me a favor.”

Zeus gave me a peculiar look. “And how would we do that? Just waltz in and tell the guard we were turned mortal and need to get up to Olympus? He wouldn’t believe that, and then we would have to get through security."

I sighed angrily. “I know that. We need to get help. There’s not a lot we can do in our current state."

Zeus retorted, his voice rising to match mine. “And who would we go to, brother?"
I looked at him. “Someone who the guard at the counter would recognize would be good."

“We are not going to your problem child for help, brother."

“I know, your ego is too large to dare ask the strongest demigod for help."

“He’s not stronger than either of my kids," he retorted impatiently.

I gave a noncommittal hum. I knew Percy wasn’t far from here, and he really was our best bet for getting back to Olympus in a timely manner. Even if he couldn’t just get us in—which I doubted—he was the only demigod crazy enough to agree to help us try to break into the Empire State Building. Truly a son after my own heart.

“Fine,” I replied. “We can do it ourselves,” I said with false finality.

Zeus narrowed his eyes, as if surprised that I had conceded the point so easily and trying to decide if I meant it or not. After a couple of seconds, he turned away and started walking. “Let's head to Camp Half-Blood so we at least have somewhere reasonable to stay the night,” he said.

I nodded in agreement and followed him as we headed off toward Long Island. After a good ten minutes of silent walking, I turned to Zeus and quickly murmured, “I’ll be back in a second,” before taking off in a sprint away from him.

I heard him yell something I couldn’t quite make out over the roar of the city, but I ignored him and continued on my journey. I heard a string of curses and the sound of him taking off after me. Good, my plan was working. I smiled mischievously and started heading toward Percy’s apartment. I burst through the door of the complex, ignoring the shout of the lady at the desk telling me to slow down, and sprinted up the stairs to their floor. I rounded the corner of the stairs and ran face-first into a UPS driver holding a stack of packages. The boxes went flying everywhere, and I yelled out a quick apology before continuing on my way up.

I heard a second crash a couple of seconds later, followed by the sound of the delivery man cursing at who I assumed must have been Zeus. I jumped the last two steps and started banging on the door. Zeus came flying up the stairwell and grabbed the hood of the hoodie I was wearing just as the door opened.

Chapter Text

Of all the things I was expecting to find at my door at five on the first Friday night of the summer, my doppelgänger being assaulted by a blonde wannabe hippie was not one of them.

 I stared out my door in a confused shock as the hippie yanked not-me down by his hood. Not-me let out a strangled squawk as he went sailing backwards into the hallway, taking his attacker with him. The blonde guy attempted to drag him away from my door and back down the stairs, but his efforts were promptly halted when his victim shoved his hand into his face and pushed him away. The attacker let go with a gasp, stumbling back a few steps, and tripping down the stairs before falling onto the small landing where the stairs turned.

Not-me straightened up from his hunched position and took a couple of steps away from the chaos before turning to face me. His face lit up in cheerful recognition as he looked at me.

“Percy!” The strange man exclaimed.

I managed to pry my eyes away from where I was watching the blonde hippie stagger to his feet to meet my look-a-like’s gaze. 

People always joke about how funny it would be to run into your doppelganger, but I was really struggling to feel anything other than absolute, complete, and utter baffling confusion at the moment.

The guy really did look like me —and not like he had a similar hair cut or sense of style as me— he was almost my carbon copy.  He had the same unruly mop of jet black hair as me; but his curled more than mine did the farther away it got farther from his head. His skin was a deep tan, like he spent all day outside in the sun, and he had a tall, athletic build.  But most frightening was the almost identical pair of piercing, sea green eyes. A trait I had gotten from my godly father, Poseidon.

“Do I know you?” I asked, my brain still struggling to catch up to what was happening.

The confusion must have been more evident on my face than I thought, because the guy shot me a nervous grin and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

”Yes? I mean kinda, it’s a bit complicated.” He said with a sympathetic smile, seemingly feeling bad for the round of mental gymnastics he and his hippie assailant were putting me through.

”He better know who we are”, blonde hippie growled, stepping back into the cramped corridor outside of my apartment.

My doppleganger(we’ll call him Perry for now, for the sake of my sanity) glared at blondie, his expression quickly switching from the one of sympathy he wore to one of exasperation as he trained his eyes on his friend. Or was it his attacker? I didn’t really know the relation between them. They seemed to be familiar with each other, and apparently, me. 

“And how would he recognize us? You don’t exactly look like your normal, peppy self, brother.”

Ah, So they were brothers. That certainly explained some of what was going— though not much. If I were to guess, Blondie must be Perry’s younger sibling.  He certainly gave off younger, entitled brat vibes.

“ I assumed he would at least recognize you, but maybe I over estimated the brat.” Blondie snarked back.

Perry said something in response, but my attention had shifted away from their bickering. I took another look at the two of them, unable to shake the feeling as though I was missing a crucial piece of information that I should have already known.

 I scrutinized the two of them as they argued. I knew for certain I had never seen the hippie before—I would remember someone with a face that punchable. Or maybe I had seen his face before, but on a much older, much grumpier but -equally rude-jerk. I dismissed that train of thought as quickly as it came— it was insulting to Blondie for me to compare him to Mr. Thunder pants.

 but I did feel for certain that I should know who Perry was though.  I had seen his face before, of that I was sure. My eyes widened in realization as it hit me. He had the same black hair, and the same eyes that I had gotten from my father… 

“Triton?” I blurted out. My gaze switched from Triton to the younger brother, furrowing my brow as I attempted to fit him into my theory. “Did dad have another kid or something?” I said hesitantly.

 Perry —no, Triton— and Blondie stopped their argument, slowly turning to face me.  Both were wearing expressions of disbelief as they looked at me.

 I blinked. Triton blinked back. I blinked again. My secret half sibling let out a loud snort.  He quickly raised his hand to his face to stifle the rest of the following snickers.

”Triton?” Probably Triton sputtered. “You think I’m Triton?” 

He gawked at me— tone conveying disbelief, if  not disgust— at the very notion of being called Triton.

”Are you not?” I asked, confusion clouding my face again.

”No!” Not-Triton exclaimed indignantly,”Why would you ever think that?” 

”We look really similar, I thought you had be related to my father.” I explained defensively, trying to de-escalate the situation before not-Triton decided he had enough of me. 

“Wait,” I said, “You know who Triton is though?” I asked.

Blondie —having recovered from his fit of laughter— answered this time. “Why, I would sure hope he would know.” He said, an amused grin appearing on his face.

 Apparently this completely awful and humiliating situation was funny to him.

The gears in my brain were clunking along at such high speeds I was certain that they could here me thinking.  The color drained from my face as all the pieces finally clicked into place. They knew me, they were brothers, one looked almost identical to me, apparently the older one knew Triton…

“Dad?”, I said, shocked.

“Percy.”  He managed to push out, his voice strained.

My father opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it. I looked between my father and his brother, arriving at my final, horrifying revelation. 

For some reason, my father and Zeus had decided to dress up as high school students and come to my doorstep— on my first day of my summer break,  only a couple days before I headed off to camp for the summer— to heckle me. 

And better yet, they probably had some dangerous, world ending quest to force on me against my will. The gods really would never stop coming up with new and progressively more creative ways to screw up my life. I could feel my hope of having the first normal summer of my life fading away as fast as my new personal Tartarus had appeared on my doorstep.

My Dad at least had the decency to look somewhat guilty for whatever he was about to say. I couldn’t say the same about Zeus. He had the audacity to appear like I was the one showing up on his doorstep to ruin the next three or more months of his life. 

I could feel my irritation at the two of them building, and neither of them had even said anything yet.  I leveled a glare directly at my father, my lips pressing together into a thin line and my eyebrows raised expectantly.

As far as demigod relations with their godly parent went, I knew I had it pretty good. Especially compared to someone like Thalia, or even Annabeth. My father had taken the time to stop by for my birthday—even if it was to help me prepare for the upcoming war.  He had told me he was proud of me, and I had been hugged by him. I knew that was more than pretty much any other demigod got.  Infact, if all of the gods treated their kids like Poseidon did, lots of demigods would still be here— some of my friends would still be here.

I probably should be giving my father the benefit of the doubt. He had never sought me out to force me on a quest, and he was always on my side when I had to stand before the Olympic council. But any levity I could give to his problem was ruined by Zeus’ presence.

“Perseus-” my father started.

“What.” I snarled at them, “What is it now? Have I still not done enough for you? Can you guys not leave me alone for one summer?”  

The last part had come out as a desperate plea. I was so tired. I was so done with being the god’s favorite plaything. I just wanted to make it through one school year without getting expelled. Just one. Just one year so I could go to New Rome next year. Just one so I could finally escape from the constant onslaught of gods and monsters that had been my life since I was twelve. I had gone through literal hell for them. I haven’t even made it through high school yet for gods’ sake!  What else could they possibly want from me?

Poseidon bit his lip, quieting whatever he was going to originally say. ”Could we at least come in, so we can explain?” He begged.

With a sigh, I turned to the side and raised my hand to show them inside, deciding it probably wasn’t a great idea to refuse the two most powerful and hot headed gods in the Greek pantheon.

”Sure,” I muttered. The word leaving a bitter taste on my tongue. “Try to make it quick, I don’t want to have to explain to my Mom or Paul why her ex is in their house.”

Poseidon forced a polite smile, and quietly thanked me before moving inside. He stopped abruptly, looking expectantly at Zeus—who hasn’t moved.

”Are you really going to reject his kind hospitality brother?” He said with a small smirk.

Muttering under his breath, Zeus followed his older brother inside.

I shut the door behind me with a slam and marched past them to the kitchen. Slowly, they filed in after me and stood awkwardly around the table, sharing an uncertain look with each other. 

Annabeth had recently complained to me about an assignment she was doing on the odyssey on the symbolism in Odysseus and Polyphemus interactions and how they related to the culture of the ancient Greeks— namely something called Xenia. It probably was a nightmare of an assignment, especially for the rest of the students who hadn’t been raised being taught ancient Greek customs. From what I had gathered from her rant, both Odysseus and Polyphemus had been awful guests/hosts, and both totally deserved what they got in the end.  

This was probably the calmest I had ever seen the two of them interact, and I decided to not push my luck with my manners too much farther.

I decided to not follow either of Odysseus or my half brother’s examples, and instead be a good host and offer the pair food and water before I got to grilling the god of hospitality on what he thought he was doing.

Annabeth would be proud of me for taking such good preventative measures to not get smote by an angry god.

I gestured to the table before walking into the kitchen to fill up two cups of water. I set the cups on the counter before turning my attention to searching for an easy snack in our pantry.  I quickly settled on goldfish, hoping that gods didn’t have strong feelings about red 40. 

I collected the cups of water and goldfish packs before setting them out on the table in front of them with a grin. I looked up and saw my father’s amused smile grow as he watched me present my snack packs of goldfish and red solo cups of lukewarm tap water like a five star meal. Our eyes met, and my smirk grew.  He knew exactly what I was doing.

Zeus looked down at the table and my offerings with a look of deep displeasure that probably caused me more happiness than it should. He cleared his throat and attempted to subtly push the pile away, but not before Poseidon reached a hand out and snatched a goldfish pack and tore it open.

”Where are your manners, Zeus? Are you really going to reject his kind offerings of hospitality?” My father chided pointedly, tossing one of the cheesy crackers into his mouth.

Zeus grimaced, and turned his head to glare at his brother. He looked away and sighed before reaching out and gingerly picking up a pack of goldfish with his thumb and index finger.

I flopped down in the chair across from them and grabbed my own cup of water— with ice in it. “So,” I started, “what is it this time? Did you lose the Zig Zag of doom again? Wrongfully accuse someone, and need me to help?” I turned my head back toward my Dad,” And what are you doing here?”

Zeus glared at me and began to rise from his seat. I had probably taken that a little too far, I thought. 

And now, I was going to get smited into the ground. I tensed, waiting for a lightning bolt to come crashing through the ceiling and turn me into a pile of ash for my mom or Paul to have to sweep up. Luckily for me and our ceiling, my Dad interrupted, placing a hand on Zeus’ shoulder to force him back down into his chair.

”No, actually.” Poseidon placated me,”We actually need your help breaking into Olympus!” He finished cheerily.

Zeus let out a frustrated sigh, reaching his hand up and pushing his hair out of his face before crossing his arms and turning his head away from us.

”What?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t that like, your house? I said, my gaze trained on Zeus.  Did you lose the key or something? Will no one else let you in?”

If it was even possible, Zeus’ expression managed to darken even further, and he finally spoke up for the first time since appearing at my door.

”The fate’s have turned us mortal.” He said darkly.

I froze in my seat, all thoughts flying out my head.

”Huh?” I asked intelligently

Zeus repeated himself, his mask of calm indifference crumbling off of his face. 

“We,” he said firmly, “have been turned mortal.” 

Of all the things I had been expecting to hear when the king of the gods showed up at my front door, him being turned mortal didn’t even make the top 100.  But the fates sure did like surprising me, so it was in the top 200.

“Wait, why? Isn’t that like, really bad?” I questioned.

”The fates brought to our attention that we  managed to accidentally cut the strings of countless mortals early, and changed the fates of many. We were told to fix it.” Zeus explained impatiently.

First of all, why does he get to be so grumpy all the time? I mean, how was I supposed to know that the fates decided they were as done with Zeus as I am? And second of all, doesn’t a god being cut off from their domain cause said domain to fall into complete chaos? Wasn’t it a pretty big deal that two major nature gods suddenly were cut off from their domains?

”You say we like I was the one they were mad at,” grumbled my Dad. “I don’t know why I’m here, I just got wrapped up in your problems, like usual.”

“Well, at least that explains why you both look like you’re going to a 1st period english lecture.” I said idly, still searching for any form of clarity in my head for this weird afternoon. 

I reached out and plucked a couple goldfish from my bag.  I slipped a them into my mouth, chewing idly while I processed my next question.

“ Won’t you two being mortal mess with your domains? I feel like it’s kinda a big deal for you two to just randomly disappear.” 

Poseidon and Zeus shared a look, as if assessing the damage their absence might be causing. 

“Probably, but Triton and Amphitrite should be able to make sure nothing too crazy happens. A couple islands or coastlines might disappear, and I wouldn’t want to take a boat out anytime soon. But no continents are going to be flooded if that’s what you mean.”

Zeus hummed in agreement before adding, “yes, there will definitely be a noticeable difference, but there are enough weather gods to take over in my short, temporary absence.”  

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “ I would expect very inconsistent weather, though. The wind gods are almost as bipolar as Poseidon.”

Poseidon side eyed him from where he was sitting, “I take offense to that.” He said, sounding decidedly not offended.

I stared at them, overwhelmed. “Apparently we have very different definitions of nothing too crazy.” I said, “ A couple coastlines? That could be whole cities!” 

My Dad rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I might not actually be that bad, I can’t really say for sure.” 

“Haven’t you been turned mortal before?” I asked, trying to remember something Annabeth had mentioned about my dad and Apollo. If I was recalling it correctly, it had something to do with the two of them building Troy’s wall, and a King Laomedon.

My Dad’s face shifted to one of displeasure at the reminder of his time under king Laomedon. “Thank you, for that wonderful reminder of that sleazy cheat.” 

“Uh, sorry.” I apologize quickly. Apparently Dad didn’t have fond feelings for the guy.

I cleared my throat, preparing to change the subject to a more relevant, and much safer topic. 

“What did the fates tell you to do?” I asked, hoping it was something easy that would get them out of my hair fast.

“Nothing, really. They mentioned fixing what we broke, and then smittened us down to earth.” Poseidon answered. 

Zeus turned his head and opened his mouth-- irritation coloring his face-- and probably prepared to say something annoying and entirely unproductive to dad.

 I decided to take mercy on my father, sympathizing with his plight of Zeus being a whiny little electrified rodent.

“So, you’re planning to ignore everything the fates said and just, go home?” 

My father sent me an appreciative look, causing me to smile.  I bit my lip, trying to smother the grin before I managed to make Zeus even angrier.

“Well, when you put it that way it sounds bad.  But there isn’t exactly a lot we can do in our current state-no offense.” Poseidon answered.

I rolled my eyes dramatically, “of course, not that infliction of mortalism has ever stopped you from making us do your dirty work.”

“Sending demigods on a quest is not dirty work.” Zeus growled. “It should be an honor.”

I could feel anger bubbling up inside of me. Who was Zeus to tell me how I should feel? There wasn’t a single world out there where a child should have to risk their life just to get noticed by their parent.

“An honor?” I said, shocked. “An honor for what? Doing your chores that you are too lazy for? Just so I can get acknowledged by my father?”

Poseidon shifted uncomfortably in his seat, evidently not enjoying being called out. 

“Percy-”

 “The ancient rules are placed there for a reason, demigod. We’re not to concern ourselves with insignificant matters such as quests.” Zeus interjected rudely.

I stood up, my anger finally spilling over. “Yeah? Then why are you here asking for my help?” I raked my gaze over the two of them accusingly.

 How dare Zeus call the problems he causes, insignificant. Demigods died to fix those problems because he was too lazy to do it himself. 

“My friends, die for those insignificant problems.  Their deaths and sacrifices for your insignificant problems are the only reason you even still around!” I yelled, rising to my feet.

Zeus followed suit, standing up abruptly to face me. 

I wouldn’t take it anymore. I wouldn’t stand here and let this bastard dismiss my friends' sacrifices like that. Sacrifices that were ended with them dying way too early, all to save this piece of crap from fading from existence.

Before I could stop myself, I lunged across the table, making a wild grab at his collar and pulling him towards me. His hands shot up and grabbed mine, prying my grip on his collar loose, and shoving my hands to the side strong enough to cause the rest of my body to follow. 

I spun on my heel, using the momentum of his push to spin me around, and threw my fist forward, intending to finish what I had started. Zeus stepped to the side of my punch, reached up, grabbing my wrist before it could make contact with his smug face, and twisting my whole arm down, pulling the rest of me with it.

He stepped around behind me, doubling me over and pinning my other arm behind my back while keeping my punching arm pulled back way further than it was meant to go.

I let out a strangled gasp of pain at the wrenching feeling in my arm, my muscles straining against his iron grip. But it was no use, he had better position, and was much stronger than me.

I heard the screech of a chair being pushed out from under the table to my side, and felt a hand reach between me and Zeus, prying us apart roughly.

I tumbled out of Zeus’ grip, and into my father’s chest. His hands quickly reaching up to my shoulders to steady me and prevent me from embarrassing myself further.

”Alright, that’s enough of that.” My dad said firmly.

 His grip tightened slightly on my shoulders, his whole body tensing, as he  waited for Zeus to react.

He relaxed after a couple beats passed, satisfied that Zeus was content glaring at me angrily.

 But he still didn’t release yet, not trusting me to not jump at Zeus again. Which was probably for the best, I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop myself if the opportunity presented itself.

Zeus’ mouth opened, probably preparing to spew out a slew of judgements at me, but was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

The three of us froze uncertain of what to do next. The two of them glanced over at me, waited for my verdict on the best course of action.

I pulled my self away from my dad’s hold, feeling surprisingly sad to leave the comforting warmth and safety of his hold.

”Quick,” I whispered, “follow me”

The nodded in response, and I dropped into a crouch, sneaking to the corner just before the entrance hallway. 

I peered around the corner warily, to see my mom faced away from us and pulling off her shoes to set to the side.

I dashed across the gap silently, and quietly unlatched the door to my room before slipping inside. I turned around to see Dad and Zeus following my example.

Once they slipped inside the room, I quietly latched the door behind me with a soft click, and flipped on the lights.

I heard footsteps approach before stopping just in front of my room.

”Percy! I’m back from work!” Called out my mom from the hall. 

I stared at the handle to my door as it stated to turn.

Thinking quickly, I blurted out.”No-changing! I’ll be out in a second!”

The knob stopped turning, and I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding in. 

“Alright, sorry sweetie!” Called my Mom, starting to walk away.

With a sigh, a turned to address the two hobos currently squatting in my room.

”I’ll be back in a second, stay here, and do not touch anything.” 

I fixed my gaze on my father. 

“And whatever you do, don’t spotted by Mom, Dad. I don’t want to have to explain to he that her ex has been turned into a teenager and needs help committing a federal crime.”

He nodded numbly in response. 

Taking a deep breath, I turned around and headed back into the kitchen to see my mom. Planning to break into Olympus would have to wait a little longer.

Chapter Text

The door latched behind Perseus as he hastened to join his mother in the living area of the apartment. I turned away from the door with a frustrated sigh, facing Poseidon.

He was reclining on the edge of a desk shoved into a corner, squishing some colorful, gelatinous rubber creature of sorts. Was squishing it supposed to accomplish something? It didn’t look like it did anything. I seemed almost as useless and disappointing as Ares.--Was it supposed to be fun?

Mortal behavior baffled me.

The only thing more confusing to me than the unpredictable whims of mortals was Poseidon himself, who seemed to derive way too much genuine amusement from the orange squishy creature. I could never reconcile how someone so powerful—and, I begrudgingly admitted, clever—could simultaneously exhibit such impulsive and simple-minded behavior.

We had fought side by side in countless battles, overcoming impossible odds together. If I had to select an ally in the face of threats like Cronus, Typhon, Gaia-Typhon, or an army of giants, there would be no one I would rather have by my side.

Typhon. I shook my head, pushing the thought away. "No, stop. I will not dwell on him. He is gone. I am fine." I thought.

I would always rely on Poseidon in battle, to make a good plan, to find the best way to defeat an enemy. But outside the heat of conflict, I knew I could not trust him. I could not rely on his loyalty, nor could I be confident that he would not exploit my trust and betray me once again.

There had once been a time when I had believed the bonds of blood and loyalty were stronger than anything, when I would have entrusted everything to him. That time, however, had long since passed. Leaving behind faint impressions-more feelings than anything-of a time now long passed.

Poseidon’s actions had made his true desires clear. that he valued power above family and thought himself above me. He had proved that his loyalty was not to me, if it had ever truly been. His betrayal during his and Apollo's golden net plot had eradicated any trust I had in familial bonds.

For centuries, I had been unable to trust anyone in my family. Perhaps there had been a time, long ago, but not anymore. The rest of gods were too prideful, too greedy, enslaved to their own egos and controlled by their whims.

Perhaps Hades had been right all those centuries ago to sever his ties with the rest of us after Zagerus faded. Yet, I could never do that—my family, however foolish, would devolve into chaos without me. Without my intervention, the constant squabbles would throw the world into turmoil.

Centuries had passed with hardly a word from Hades. His withdrawal from mortal affairs had caused the Mycenaeans to worship Poseidon as both god of the sea and the underworld, as they had needed a new chief chthonic deity to replace Hades. And who better than the one they had seen causing so much destruction in that time?

Many of us, during that time, had fallen silent-- not just Hades.

Engulfed in a civil war that spanned multiple pantheons, we had little attention left to devote to mortals. Poseidon, however, had been one of the few to maintain a facade of control in the face during that time.

It was in that time that the Mycenaeans had elevated Poseidon to be their chief deity. The foolish bastards.

Hades' disappearance had been the final nail in the coffin, the beginning of the family’s decline. Plunging us into chaos and eventually, leading to the destruction of Mycenae.

My brooding was abruptly interrupted when a gelatinous mass struck my face with a wet thwock.

I spun around, glaring at the fish-brained fool who stood behind me, sporting a smug expression.

"Did you catch any of that?" he asked.

I picked up the creature- it appeared to be some sea creature of sorts, a jellyfish maybe? No, it was definitely an octopus or a squid, I honestly never cared to learn the difference out of spite for Poseidon.

I glared back at him. “No, I filter out idiots.”

Poseidon’s face screwed up in offense. “Wow, life must be hard not being able to think.”

I clenched my jaw, squishing the rubbery creature in my hand, as though wringing Poseidon's neck. It was oddly satisfying. Perhaps mortals were onto something with these squishy toys.

Poseidon eyed me warily. "What did the squishy ever do to you?"

"Looked too much like you," I retorted coldly.

"Did you just call me a cephalopod?"

"No, I called you a squid." Poseidon gave me the most disappointed, baffled look I had ever seen.

I shifted uncomfortably. "What?" I asked, uncharacteristically self-conscious.

Mortal emotions were unsettling. "That is an octopus," he began, "And you don’t even know what a cephalopod is, do you?"

“Why would I need to know that?"

"Because it’s basic knowledge."

“Fine, what is it?” I asked impatiently.

I could feel my face starting to burn, and wanted to get this exchange over as fast as I could before Perseus came back.

“Well, I would be glad to educate you little brother!” He said with a grin.

I could feel the nerdy ocean facts dump coming.

“Why, it refers to adorable creatures! Like this little guy!.” He said with a cheerful smile. He took a breath to continue.

I interrupted, frowning. "Why would you think I’m calling you cute? The squishy looks ridiculous, not cute"

He gasped in mock offense, pulling the squishy closer as though to shield it from my insult. "Because you said I looked like it, and it is very much a cephalopod. And a cute one at that!" I scowled. "It’s foolish-looking. That was the point."

"Edwardo is not foolish-looking!" Poseidon protested, cradling the squishy to his cheek. "Don’t listen to him, buddy. You’re adorable."

I clenched and unclenched my fist, resisting the urge to strike him. Perhaps these mortal toys served a purpose after all.

"Give me the squishy," I demanded.

"No," Poseidon replied firmly.

"You don’t appreciate him." "I like him more than I like you."

"You called him foolish. And you didn’t say please."

I inhaled deeply, imagining striking Poseidon with a bolt of lightning, before reluctantly forcing out the word, "Please."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise, evidently not expecting my civility.

I seized the opportunity, lunging forward to grab the squishy. My hand closed around it, and I yanked. Poseidon stumbled backward, pulling me with him. I wrapped my hand around the squishy, trying to yank it away from Poseidon’s hands. He stumbled back a few steps, pulling the squishy and me with him.

Of course, that was the exact moment Perseus decided to re-enter the room.

“Sorry, we can continue now-” Poseidon flinched in surprise, raming his shoulder into my face. I tumbled backward, landing hard on the floor but managing to rip the squishy from his grasp.

"What are you doing to Wally?" Perseus demanded, unbothered by my fall.

"Edwardo," Poseidon and I corrected simultaneously.

We exchanged glares.

Perseus blinked at us. "Do you two always act like this?"

"No," I scoffed.

"Yes," Poseidon replied dryly.

I strangled Edwardo in frustration.

Perseus sighed. "Whatever. Can we finish this conversation so you can both leave?" "That’s probably for the best," Poseidon agreed.

Perseus sat down on the edge of his bed as Poseidon extended a hand to assist me. I eyed it warily before accepting it. He hoisted me slightly, but I quickly sprang to my feet once I was high enough.

Poseidon smirked. "I only considered dropping you. I wasn’t actually going to do it." I snorted in disbelief.

Perseus, ever unhelpful, chimed in, "I would have dropped him."

“Yeah well, getting struck by lightning isn’t great for your health.” He finished, giving his son a pointed look.

Perseus huffed. "He can’t do anything now." His eyes sparkled with a hopeful, mischievous look. "Unless he’s keeping a list to get revenge later?"

"Yes," Poseidon confirmed flatly, giving his son a reproachful look.

The brat’s grin faded. "Fair enough. Anyway, why do you need me to get you in? Can’t you just press the elevator button yourself?" "

There’s a panic button for the desk operator," I explained. "And it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Hecate’s spells require the operator’s explicit consent to open the elevator—either spoken or thought."

“But, if the elevator is opened, and permission to enter Olympus is expressed, anyone who is in the elevator can get up.” Poseidon added.“Currently, I think our best course of action is to have Percy convince the desk-man to let him up, we knock him out, and then hitch a ride up.”

I nodded thoughtfully, “What about the enchantments in the city? We’ll never get explicit permission to enter, so the drakon will have been summoned.

“Drakon?” Perseus questioned, “You guys just have a drakon on standby to eat any poor unsuspecting people who accidently hitch a ride up to Olympus? Has that ever even happened?” Percy questioned.

“Yeah, actually.” Poseidon responded with a grimace.

“That was pretty messy. We didn’t get there fast enough to get the drakon off. There wasn’t much of a body to give back to his family, just some toes and a spleen. She’s never been fond of spleens.” Poseidon ended thoughtfully.

I mentally face palmed at Poseidon’s ignorance as Perseus’ expression shifted to one of horror.

“But we have taken the time since then to make sure the drakon can be summoned and dismissed remotely since then!” Poseidon attempted to placate.

“Am I going to be the drakon meal in this plan then?” Perseus asked nervously.

“Yeah-minus your spleen.” I said, glaring at Poseidon.

“No you're not Percy.” Poseidon corrected. “I’m not going to feed you to the drakon.”

“I might” An elbow met my side, causing me to flinch.

“Fine, no drakon feeding.” I muttered, saltily.

“Once we get to the top, we’ll take care of the drakon --probably mostly you actually, I’m unsure if we have any access to powers or not. Once we get past the drakon, we find Apollo and blackmail him into turning us back into gods, drop you back off, and go solve whatever problem the fates want us to.” Said Poseidon.

Ah, right, domains. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of still having some control over my domains. The more I thought about it, the more likely I began to believe I might not just be a mortal. I could see the monsters, and the basilisks had found me, not the other way around.

Was it possible I was a demigod? It could have been possible that the basilisks had followed my scent-- they weren’t monsters you tended to just find in a New York alley. Sewers, maybe, but definitely not an alley. Hellhounds were the most common city monster since they looked like dogs and could blend in easier.

Being a demigod would be substantially better than just being a mere mortal. It would still be awful, but almost bearable. I had never been mortal before, and I was not enjoying the strange, alien emotions coursing through me at all times. Everything I did seemed to cause me some mild form of discomfort as well. It was annoying, and I was already getting tired of it. Thankfully, once we found our way back to Olympus using this demigod, everything would go back to normal. I would only be mortal for the rest of the day-maybe a little of tomorrow, at most.

Tentatively, I reached into myself, attempting to tap into the normal buzzing coil of energy in my core. I frowned slightly, I could feel something, but it was just as likely me suffering from mortal frailties as it was to be power. I concentrated on the strange sensation inside of me, and imagined it slowly spreading throughout me, sparking along my blood, and crawling down into fingertips. Nothing.

My frown grew deeper, and I tried again. This time, deliberately focusing on the sensation and how it would feel to stretch the coil of possible power, instead of simply imagining the sensation growing and building in power as it moved to the focused part of my body like I normally would have.

There! I could feel it! Was it working? The power wasn’t growing like normal, but i could feel the sensation moving, changing its spot of rest from the center of my chest and moving to my fingers.

So it stretched, It was like tangible energy I had to manipulate and move to use instead of a battery. Every time I used the energy would it grow smaller? Would it regenerate?

When I used power normally, it was like a charger connected to a battery growing and refiling while being used. The only way to exhaust the reactor was to break it, or in not analogous terms; get too exhausted to keep using the power.

Finally,-after many agonizing attempts at drawing the power out from inside my hand where it was now residing, sparks danced along my hand. The buzz of the conversation that had continued without me came to an abrupt halt.

“You can still control electricity?” Poseidon inquired, his excitement at the prospect of still having some control over his domain bubbling over into his expression.

He quickly looked down at his hands, before frowning. “I probably shouldn’t try to do anything, I don’t want to ruin the plumbing or collapse the building.” He threw his hand back down at his side, shoving them into his pocket, pouting.

Perseus gave him an amused, sympathetic glance. “I appreciate that.” he said with a small smile.

With a huff of disappointment, he turned to me, “Well, that will probably make our situation a little easier.” he said optimistically. I let out a grunt of agreement.

“So, the plan is pretty straightforward, probably for the best.” He said. “It would probably be best to do it today. It gets it out my way, makes you gods again before any cities disappear,” He glared at Poseidon, “and leaves me with the rest of my summer!” He finished happily. Poseidon nodded, smiling down at his brat, an awfully affectionate expression on his face. I raised my eyebrow at him. He snapped out of his weird, parental daze--shooting me an annoyed look-- and pursed his lips in thought. “One problem though,” he said guiltily, looking at his son. “We need weapons, celestial bronze- or imperial gold I guess.” He added a second later.

Perseus’ grin grew, “well then it's a good thing I have some left over from when Thalia stopped by on a hunt!”

He walked over to his closet, throwing it open and reaching into the corner, throwing some random clothes and papers out of the abyss known as a teenage boy’s closet, before emerging from his closet with a handful of bronze weaponry. In the lack of care and respect only a modern demigod would have for weapons, he tossed it onto the ground in front of us.

I met Poseidon’s eyes and we shared a look of distaste at the less than satisfactory weaponry thrown scattered on the carpet.

“Well?” Percy asked expectantly, “Choose one, the quicker the better, then you can be on your way and I can eat dinner.”

I felt a pang of sympathy for the kid, Poseidon was the biggest snob I had ever seen in regards to weapons-a trait he somehow managed to pass down to his kids.I promptly remembered who I was feeling bad for though, and immediately stopped. He deserved this for all the headaches even Athena hadn’t been comparable to he had brought me over the years.

Poseidon picked up a sword that had landed at his feet, and dropped it quicker than I could blink.

“Eugh” He said informatively.

I raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips, staring blankly at the wall behind Poseidon. We were going to be here a while. The brat was not going to get his dream of a timely meal.

I looked down, and picked a kopis. Poseidon was right, this was eugh.

“Was this balanced for someone missing their right leg?” I said, disgusted.

Percy looked between us, eye twitching. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

Grimacing, I discarded the curved blade with a frustrated huff. Poseidon had now transitioned to a different weapon—a xiphos.

That was promising. Of all swords, I knew he favored those; perhaps he would be able to tolerate this one. Yet, judging by the quality of the previous sword I had chosen, I remained doubtful. Poseidon’s expression confirmed my musings.

Perseus groaned, collapsing onto his bed. “You two are complete weapon snobs. Preppy, spoiled weapon snobs. You should go talk to Clarisse, be with your own kind.”

“Poseidon is a weapon snob. Me? I simply have standards,” I retorted.

“I am not a snob. I just prefer my equipment to be functional,” Poseidon snapped.

He tended to be sensitive about such matters.

I picked up a spear next, hoping that perhaps the craftsman responsible was merely inept at forging swords, not all weapons.

It was terrible—though tolerably so—but there was no chance it was going to improve. I adjusted my grip, resignation etched across my face.

“They can’t be that bad,” Perseus said, reaching for the kopis his father had initially rejected.

He frowned. “I mean, it’s not that bad. It feels like a normal sword to me. It’s balanced, just... not for me.”

I extended my hand, eager to prove Poseidon’s snobbery. Perseus eyed me skeptically before handing over the blade.

The moment I grasped it, my hopes were dashed. “This feels like it was made of clay, not bronze,” I declared.

Poseidon nodded emphatically. “Exactly! That’s what I thought!” he said smugly.

I scowled and let the weapon fall from my hand. “Just choose one already,” I muttered.

Poseidon huffed in irritation before selecting another xiphos from the pile. “I hope I don’t have to use this,” he grumbled. “I doubt it could cut anything.”

Perseus sighed, long and miserable. “Snobs. Spoiled, pretentious snobs,” he mumbled.

Suddenly, he sat up straight. “But you two are ready, right?”

We both nodded, shifting our new weapons uncomfortably in our hands, dissatisfaction evident on our faces.

“Alright, finally,” Perseus muttered. “Let’s commit a felony then.”

Chapter Text

A drop of rain hit me in the face as it cascaded down from the heavens in one of the heaviest downpours New York had ever seen. Thunder crackled above us wildly, like a chariot driver trying to encourage its wild steeds forward, but uncontrolled without its usual master there to guide it. flashes of white hot energy were lighting up the darkened sky amidst the agonized tears being shed. The whole sky seemed to be mourning the loss of its King, and the world below was at its mercy.

Pedestrians sprinted from place to place, pulling their jackets over their heads to shield themselves from the sky’s sudden onslaught. 

We briskly slogged through the now flooded streets of Manhattan like shipwrecked sailors walking through the high tide, trekking forward towards our goal. Olympus.

I braced as a sudden gale of cold air hit us, grimacing. I was now incredibly grateful to the fates for favoring me, and giving me the thin hoodie I now had pulled over my head instead of the beige, flimsy tee and joggers Zeus had been given.

I glanced over at my son, Percy, and watched him shiver and hunch his shoulders deeper to bury his face further in his navy blue zip up. A frown came over my face as I observed his discomfort. A strange, twisting sensation of unhappiness and helplessness shooting up through my chest at the sight. 

I squirmed at the uncomfortable twinge, shoving my hands deeper into my pockets in response. Human emotions were confusing. They were strange and volatile, reactive at the slightest change in environment, and so incredibly humbling. What was causing this bout of feeling? I furrowed my brow in confusion, pondering the alien sensations that had been pestering me for most of the day. My gaze subconsciously drifted back over to Percy, the twisting sensation in my chest flaring back to life. Underneath all the stabbing feelings of helplessness and unhappiness laid an emotion that felt out of place among the less than saccharine feelings. Fondness? No, that wasn’t quite it.

My frown deepened. It wasn’t as though gods didn’t feel emotions such as anger, sadness or joy, but they were less reactive than the ones of mortals. I would consider myself a relatively emotional person, small things ticked me off, and my mood could switch faster than you could say fish. But I had never felt such common feelings of discomfort from such small things. But now, someone looking at me out of the corner of their eye made me turn red and self-conscious, and Percy’s barbed words towards Zeus had made me feel guilty, inferior. They hadn’t even been directed at me! Why should I feel remorse for Zeus’ failures! Because you choose to obey those failures. My mind whispered. No, I wasn’t going to go there now, I’ve been down that road before and it had destroyed everything.

Were these feelings of inferiority really things humans just felt on the daily? It seems exhausting to be so reactive to every small judgement and happenstance in the world. I already felt wrung out, and I’ve just been here a few hours at most.

I shook myself out of my thoughts, pushing the strange, uncomfortable emotions to the side. I wasn’t ready to deal with those yet. Instead, I focused on watching my breath come out in a smoky puff in front of my face before quickly being chased away by the rain. My teeth chattered against my will, and I clenched my jaw in stubborn defiance at showing such mortal discomfort. 

Thankfully, the familiar doors of the Empire State Building came into sight, the warm glow from the lobby peaking out in an enticing invitation.  

My foot landed in a puddle, soaking my shoes as I jumped up the curb. I grimace, but decided against trying to dry my foot, not knowing the limits of my powers or how tiring it was to do as a mortal. It took mild effort to tug on individual water molecules instead of the whole wet object normally, and I wasn’t eager to discover how tiring it was when I needed to fight a drakon soon.

Getting eaten because of a wet sock would be an embarrassing way to go.

Percy jogged forward, wrapping his head around the handle and tugging it open. We quickly filed inside after him. There were a couple of people milling about the lobby, quietly talking about their plans for the rest of the day or the sudden change in weather. Percy stepped off to the side and quickly dried himself off before continuing towards the doorman.

“We’re closed right now kid.”

“I need to get to the 600th floor,”Percy said.

The desk worker let out a bark of laughter, “haha kid, very funny, really got me there!”

Percy turned away with a sigh, muttering, “ you really think saving this place twice would get you better service.” Under his breath.

He turned his head back towards the door man again. “Do we really have to do this every time? I need to get to the 600th floor.”

There is no 600th floor kid, now leave before I call security.” The man said as he reached to pick up the phone.

“I need to see the big Z, the thunder man!” Percy exclaimed.

The door man looked at him tiredly. “Look, I know who you are, Jackson. But I’ve been given explicit instructions to not let you up into Olympus, from Zeus himself.”

Percy glanced back to Zeus and I with an amused but exasperated expression. He turned back to the worker, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a slip of paper. He slapped it down onto the desk, the sound of it echoing around the room, causing people to give him a weird look.

The clerk looked at him skeptically, reaching down to pick up the letter. He reached down and pulled out a letter opener, promptly using it for its intended purpose. He unfolded the document from within and read it. A frown crossed his face.

He held the letter up to the light to inspect it and asked, “When did this letter get sent to you?

“Just now, Hermes practically broke everything in my house when he gave it to me.” Percy replied.

The man let out a huff of frustration, “they never tell me anything.” He muttered, turning his head towards Percy. “Fine, I’ll let you in, but if you cause trouble you better not drag any back to me.” He reached down and pushed a button, the elevator doors opened off to the side. 

Percy nodded his thanks to the man before stepping inside the elevator, glancing at us with some urgency. Zeus and I took off towards the doors just as they started to close. I threw my hand out between the closing panels, halting their movement before clambering in, Zeus right behind me.

“Hey! Stop right there! Ah I knew something was weird about that letter.” Yelled the clerk before his voice was cut off by the doors.

Not quite sure what he was talking about, Zeus did write that letter, Percy didn’t lie about a thing in that whole exchange. not even needing to talk to Zeus I guess, seeing as he would have to in order to help us get past the Drakon. Technically, that was an officially sourced letter.

Percy turned to us, face severely, “alright, so now we just have to fight a drakon, easy as that, right?” He said, some forced cheerfulness painting his tone.

I hummed in agreement. A silence washed over the elevator. Zeus reached over his shoulder and grabbed the tote bag he had been carrying that contained the weapons we had selected from that truly awful collection. Did Demigods really settle for those inferior poorly made bronze butter knives? Actually, that was offensive to butter knives, they were balanced better than those chunky toothpicks disguised as weapons. 

Zeus threw the bag on the floor of the elevator, crouching down to unzip it. He reached his hand into the opening, clasping around the spear he had chosen earlier. He put it to the side and grabbed the sword I had reluctantly chosen after much deliberation. Looking over to me, he tossed over the blade. I smoothly caught the weapon in my left hand, spinning it into my right testing the balance and still being thoroughly disappointed.

“These are a disgrace to swords everywhere.” I mummer bitterly. 

Zeus let out a sigh and rolled his eyes, “you’ll live for ten more minutes.”

When it snaps in my hand in seven minutes and I die a horrible painful death I expect an apology.” I snarked.

Will you two shut up?” Percy snapped, “If anyone is going to die it’s going to be because I stab you, not the drakon.”

Zeus whipped his head around to glare at him, his grip tightening on the shaft of his spear. “Watch your tone boy, it’s starting to sound very treasonous.”

“Don’t give me a reason to stab you and I won’t act so treasonous with my freedom of speech.” Percy shot back. 

“Your lack of respect will be the death of you Perseus.”

“Your lack of self-awareness is going to be the death of us all!” Percy exclaimed, spreading his arms to gesture to all three of us.

Zeus lunged forward towards Percy spear in hand,“You insubordinate little shi-“

I stepped between them, bringing my sword up in a parry and quickly spinning the blade in a small circle and pulling down, forcing the tip of the spear into the elevator floor.

I heard Percy stumble back a step, a quick inhale of air alerting me to his feelings of surprise. 

I glared at a now seething Zeus. He opened his mouth to further escape the already escalated situation. But the door let out a chime, and opened to show us the streets of Olympus.

Percy shoved past me, stepping out into the agora. I gave Zeus one more final look before stepping out to stand next to my son.

“Let’s find this stupid lizard so I can leave.” He said quietly, stepping forward. 

I raised my hand and placed it on his shoulder, pulling him back gently. He turned his head around, eyes meeting mine, anger smoldering beneath the surface. He yanked his shoulder free, continuing forwards.

“Percy-“

I was cut off by a sudden hissing sound. Lines of runes and incantations began to glow white hot, rising from the floor and beginning to form the drakon. The lines suddenly solidified into a giant lizard, baring its dripping fangs to us.

Drakon’s were very often confused with dragons because of how similar their names were, but anyone who had seen one would never make that mistake again. For starters, dragons were younger, and had large, bat-like wings. Drakon’s on the other hand, had wings that closely resembled the wings to a wombat. That is, no wings, just in case you're not a wombat expert.

The drakon in front of us was a violent red color. It reminded me of the offensive shade of red on athletic shorts and shirts that seemed to be so popular with the nine year old boys in this century. It had a long snake-like body with short, squatty legs that should not have been able to hold its weight. Rounding off the trifecta of strange features that should never be on one creature was black, curly horns adorning its head like a laurel. What it won to get said laurel, I don’t know. Maybe a beauty contest? The drakon did have very nice cheekbones.

My musings were interrupted by a blast of flame that was hurtling towards Percy, who was frozen in shock at the sudden appearance of the monster. 

I lunged forward without thinking, grabbing Percy by the shoulder and throwing him to the side, putting my body in between the scorching flames and him.

Percy let out a gasp, stumbling a few steps before finding his footing. I looked over at him, my hands resting protectively on his shoulders. He seemed out of it, unfocused and confused. Was he still hung up on Zeus from earlier? Had that really shaken him up that bad? That seemed unlikely and definitely out of character for my normally impulsive, disrespectful son. He didn’t care what Zeus thought- or anyone for that matter- and he would let him know that anytime of any day. 

 I released his shoulders, hoping he was okay-and not just because we were going to need him for this fight. I heard a muffled gasp of gratitude from behind me. 

I turned my feet towards the drakon, preparing to do something probably reckless and impulsive-or not, who knows? It’s a new day today, I might choose to be responsible. I’ll find out a bit when I run towards the fire breathing reptile. I have done that a lot lately. And this time I wasn’t armed with a weapon as high quality as a broken gold club. Instead of a gold club, I had a bronze chopstick. I might be able to poke it in the eye if I’m lucky

The monster swung its ugly face towards me, a low menacing growl echoing in its throat. I was suddenly very grateful that Zeus had discovered that we had demigod abilities beforehand, I had a feeling I was going to need some good ol’ fire resistance soon. 

The monster swung a taloned, gnarly foot towards me.  I ducked under the foot—wind rushing over my head—and sprang forward, clearing the swipe of its talons and flanking it to its front left side.

I heard a gruff yell split the air, as a bolt of lightning crashed down from the sky onto the head of the drakon’s head in classic blow-everything-up-first-worry-about- complications-later Zeus maneuver. His favorite strategy. Not that I really had any room to judge. 

The monster let out a shriek, its neck arching backward and its head being flung wildly. 

Percy had by now uncapped Anaklusmos, and was facing the drakon. He dived forward, aiming his blade in a diagonal slash at the now exposed throat of the fire-breathing lizard, his blade lightly scratching the hard, armor-like scales on its neck. 

I took the opportunity that had presented itself and aimed a thrust towards the softer scales in its armpit. The blade sunk in with a wet, squelching sound. I heard the lizard roar in pain, and I ripped the blade down, tearing skin as I went. The wound now oozing gold.

The monster whipped its head around, hitting me in the side before I could dodge, sending me crashing across the floor and into a fountain base. It just had to miss the water, didn’t it. 

I rolled over with a groan. Did I break a rib? Is this what breaking a rib feels like? It hurt, I was pretty sure it hurt. Could you hallucinate pain? No, you only hallucinate with your eyes. Plus, I was pretty sure it was real- it felt real, but that’s what people who hallucinate think too, I’m not sure, I don’t normally hallucinate. Who knows, maybe my ribs are seeing(feeling) things?

I pushed myself into a plank position before springing to my feet, grabbing my discarded toothpick before I rose to my full height. I turned back towards the ongoing fight to see Percy on top of the drakon grabbing its horns and forcing its head back. The situations this brat gets himself into. I felt very proud of my son at that moment. And he was obviously accomplishing his goal since the throat of the drakon was now exposed from inside its gaping mouth. 

The drakon thrashed around and roared, weak bursts of flame erupting from its throat, narrowly missing Zeus. Which I guess was good?

Zeus dodged the wisps of flame, and thrusted his spear forward, spearing the drakon in the roof of the mouth. The lizard threw its head back, taking Zeus’ spear with it and throwing Percy off of its head. 

 The monster continued to roar, swinging its head around and spewing out tongues of flame, causing Zeus to lurch backwards to avoid being burned, now without his spear.

 I jogged a couple steps forward from where I was standing, stopping over Percy’s sprawled out body. I reached down, grabbing his hand and hauling him up. 

“Are you okay?” I inquired, concern bubbling up in my chest and flowing out into my voice.

“Yeah, you?” He answered, sounding a little winded.

I nodded, my hand still resting on his shoulder as my eyes turned towards the drakon. 

“If you get the chance, throw some water into his mouth and try to hold it there for a bit.” I advised, a rudimentary plan forming in my mind.

Percy knit his eyebrows in confusion, but nodded. He reached into his pocket and drew out his pen, uncapping it before running ahead and back into battle. I followed close behind before swerving back to the flank I had stabbed. I could still see the cut, it was still oozing gold, and I could tell that it was hurting the drakon to put weight on. 

Zeus ducked under a snap of teeth just above his head and rolled to the side, coming up in a crouch, electricity sparkling between his fingertips before fizzling out. I could see his grimace of annoyance from here, the bolt must have taken more out of him than he had expected. I was suddenly very glad at my decision to just wallow in the misery of a wet sock instead of drying it, seeing as something normally so easy for Zeus now left him barely able to conjure up a crackle of electricity. I was starting to doubt if my plan was going to work though. Would I have enough energy to accomplish what I wanted to do? 

I took advantage of the distraction Zeus was  currently causing, and rammed my blade back into the cut, dragging it in a horizontal direction this time.  I quickly stepped back to avoid the swing of the monster’s tail as it swung around to face me with a pained growl. 

Percy swung his blade forward, with a shout, his sword coming down directly across the eyes of the beast. It flinched back, ichor dripping from its now closed eyes. 

Percy quickly followed up his last attack with a stab to the exposed flesh on the inner cheek of the drakon. His sword sunk in, lodging firmly in the side of the monster’s face. He released one hand, reaching out and wrapping it around the shaft of the Spear that had been holding the monster’s mouth open just slightly, and pulled. He pulled at the same time with his other hand, yanking both weapons clear before stumbling backwards and collapsing.

The monster recoiled in pain, but didn’t wait long to launch a counter. It reared back its head preparing to launch forward and snap Percy clean in half.

The world seemed to slow as the beast lurched forward. I could see every minute movement Percy made. A sharp, shallow intake of breath causing his chest rise, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead, his left hand twitching as it searched for Anaklusmos, the slight widening of his eyes. The collecting of venom on the ends of the beast's fangs. I could feel the blood draining from my face as I watched every small action my son took before he was cleaved in half because of my helplessness. Was this really how he was going to die? The two time savior of Olympus, a survivor of literal hell? 

In my shocked state, I didn’t see the water rise from the fountain, and blast into the mouth of the drakon, shoving back the maw of the beast centimeters above my son’s prone body. 

I could see slight cuts on his torso from where the teeth of the beast had grazed him.

“DAD!”

His shout snapped me out of my stupor. He had done it. Percy had managed to get the lizard in the situation I was hoping for. I couldn’t mess up, I didn’t even know if it was possible for me to freeze things in my current state, but it was the only option unless I wanted Percy to become seafood.

I thrust my right hand forward, making a clawing motion imagining yanking back the water in the lizard's mouth. 

The water responded to my command, combining with the force of Percy’s control and pushing the drakon’s head back, outing roughly a foot between him and the fangs. I released my hold on the water, closed my eyes and imagined the water crystallizing and solidifying into a solid shape. I opened my eyes when I heard the usuals crackle of freezing ice. 

I saw Zeus thrust his spear through the ice and into the back of the monster's throat, dissolving it into a shower of gold.

I wrenched my hand down, an insurmountable feeling of exhaustion washing over me, dragging me under and smothering me. The coroners of my vision started to fade to black, and I could feel the world spinning under my feet. I took a staggering step towards them, my worry for Percy driving me.

I heard a flurry of footsteps in front of me, and then felt the steadying presence of a hand on my shoulder, keeping me upright. 

“Don’t pass out on me, I don’t want to have to drag you down town.” I heard Zeus mutter.

“M not plannin on it.” I slurred.

“The fuzzy silhouette of Percy rose into my vision. I could see something red dripping down his chest. Those cuts seemed to be more serious than I had thought.

“We need to get you to Apollo.” I managed.

Percy looks at me with what I think is concern? I don’t know why he’s concerned, I feel fine. I barely even got hurt, this didn’t even remotely compare to the time I fell off a cliff and fell through what felt like five hundred bridges and multiple misplaced trees before landing on my face. Or the time Hades completely ran me through an accident(long story), or even the time my father almost bit my arm when I tried to stop him from eating me (that had hurt). I was fine, really, the world normally break dances in my vision. 

Just as the sound to reassure the two of my state, the world flipped upside down and started to fade to black. My last thought was that the world was  pretty good at backflips, that had to be at least a double. 

A ringing sound began to bounce around my head as I regained consciousness. The first thing I noticed beside the horrible noise  was the blinding white light seeping through my tightly closed eyelids and burning itself into my corneas. The second thing I noticed after a couple good seconds at cursing Apollo’s existence was that I was either laying on the best mattress ever invented or that I was floating. I was hoping for the first one.

I cracked my eyes open a hair, just to snap them shut again as an awfully bright white light shone directly into my face. I raised a hand in hopes of deterring the light from its path, but it was of barely any use. I opened my eyes again, squinting to shield my unconditioned eyes from the horrible light of the Apollo-or maybe the light of the god of artificial bioluminescent light sources? That didn’t quite have the same ring to it. 

I finally managed to pry my eyes open, meeting the blaze of the unspecified light source head on. I quickly noticed that the entire room seemed to be glowing, and, I was not on the best mattress of all time, I was floating in a white glowing abyss. Which I guess you could argue would make  a good mattress. 

I let out a groan, my lips feeling chapped and my throat parched. I flopped my head to the side, the slight use of muscles to hold my neck exhausting me. To my surprise(not) I saw Zeus laying on the ground next to me, probably going through very similar thoughts as me.

He did seem more motivated than me though, because he shoved himself into a sitting position, one hand behind him to support his weight and the other to shield his eyes from the all encompassing light.

I decided to follow his example, deciding that sitting up was better than rotting on the floor. I pushed myself up and surveyed the room around me. There were no walls, no corners, no furniture, not plants, no beaches, no McDonalds, and no street lights. I quickly came to the conclusion I was not in a room, and probably not in Narnia. From what I gathered I would have to come to the conclusion that I was sitting in a white abyss. Which was a nice shake up to the dark abyss’ I normally ran into. I appreciated the way this abyss differentiated from the others.

Judging from the expression on Zeus’ face I assume he came to a similar conclusion. Except I think he seems like the sort of guy who would like dark abysses. He was different and edgy like that.

He looked at me with a confused look and I dreaded the things that look was going to bring me, look I don’t enjoy answering questions I don’t tend to have great in-depth outlooks of things I tend to look at things and take them at relatively face value based on how they looked like the way this room looked when I looked around it it was abyss looking if you ask me what I thought it looked like.

(Oh did that bother you? Well sorry, I didn’t know I was talking to the grammar police.)

Before Zeus could ask anything, my favorite old lady trio appeared, the Morai.

Yay, they probably had just great news to share.

My humorous coping mechanisms suddenly got sidelined as my brain started to run wild. Percy had been hurt pretty badly, those scratches had needed to be treated fast, and I had blacked out instead of helping. Don’t tell me…

The Fates turned their cold, dark eyes towards me. Their skin stretched into leathery smiles, barring yellow, crooked teeth.  It was a stark contrast to their almost desaturated skin. Their wispy white hair completes the monster from Tartarus here to steal your shoes look. 

I shifted uncomfortably, preparing for the worst. 

They tilted their heads at me inquisitively, as though reading my mind, they asked, “Ahh, is that fear I feel? Fear of us? No… you would never.” They monologued, voices overlapping to create an eerie almost robotic sound. “ Ahh. Your son, Perseus? How adorable, a god, caring for a mortal.”

I worked my jaw, butting back the impulsive and disrespectful retort on the top of my tongue. I always cared for my children. Just because I let them fight their battles didn’t mean I don’t care about them, Percy especially. I don’t think it is physically possible for me to be more proud of the insubordinate little brat.  He took all two of my good traits and all of his mother’s and became someone with a true heart of gold. Percy didn’t need my help, and probably didn’t want it. I could feel whatever I wanted about him and he wouldn’t care. As far as he’s concerned, I wasn’t his father in anything but blood. His real father was the mortal Sally had married recently, I was just his tie to the Greek world, and one he would have been better without. I knew that I wasn’t Percy’s favorite person, and I was content to leave him alone, even if I would rather wrap him in bubble wrap and hide him away from the constant danger he seemed to get himself in.

“If I were you two, I would listen, time is still moving, and the boy is in danger. All while you lay on the floor.” The fates said with a slight chuckle, shaking me out of my moping.

I pursed my lips together, wanting to get whatever they had to say over so I could get out of here.

“Oh, what an intricate and incredible design we have for your threads!” Their dark eyes sparkled with glee. “Truly, the two of you are some of our favorite designs! Such and elaborate history, such an exciting future! Your stories are going to be some of our finest work.”

My mouth went dry, of all the things I wanted to hear, being told my life was a fine weaving from the fates was on the bottom of the list. They tended to have a sick interpretation of what is exciting, misery seemed to bring them joy.

“Of course, we knew you would try to skip the journey, typical of gods, avoiding their problems until it’s too late.” They said, eyes trained on Zeus. They switched their gaze over to me, scrutinizing me.

“How are we to solve our thread cutting problem as mortals? We can barely take on a  drakon! How are you expecting us to do anything when we’re this weak?” Zeus exclaimed.

The fate’s heads swung over to look at Zeus in sync. “The problem is not the distance, it’s what lies in between. The issue will be fixed when you accomplish the journey, not the goal.”

“What are we here for then? I can walk a journey as a god!” Zeus exclaims.

The fates look at us and sigh. Which like, wow, that kinda hurt. My hair can’t look that bad. I mean, Zeus is a walkin disappointment, I get being disappointed at him, but me? Please, I’m  fabulous.

Lachesis stepped forward, and green smoke began to spew forward from their mouth. 

When the storm rages and the skies are torn asunder,

 the hand of Midas rises,

 a force against the thunder,

Beware of shattered suns and venomous spite,

And the stolen souls of those who have been struck by the widow’s bite.

As the blind one turns its eye to heaven,

Only the united can stand without reckon”

I blinked. Ah yay, a prophecy. About me and Zeus no less. Storm rages, that was probably referring to both me and Zeus and whatever mystery issue we were supposed to be solving. From my previous prophecy experience and expertise, I assume that storm is referring to me since something sky related is also specified. Raging? I guess, some seem to think I’m a little hot headed for some reason. I was a fan of the part where the skies are torn asunder. Maybe if I'm lucky it will be literal.

“A prophecy? You give us a prophecy? Who do you think we are? Trivial demigod for you to toy with?”

Please be literal. I prayed to no one in particular. Maybe I should address Hera, we’ve been on good terms lately and I know she’s always on board with some Zeus bullying.

“Are you not those trivial demigods now? I think We do know who you are, it’s you who doesn’t.”

Ouch, thanks for the reminder granny nieces.

Zeus growled and rose to his feet, probably preparing to assault his children. 

“Who do you think you are…” lightning crackled around him ominously.

“The controllers of fate, your fate father.” They replied. 

Clotho raised a hand, the green mist that had been spewed forth from the prophecy swirling around her hand before exploding forward into a whirlwind of mist. My vision began to fade in the wind.

“I would get running when you make it back, I don’t think olympians normally take too well to insubordinate demigod intruders breaking in to steal symbols of power. And I don’t think that’s a fight you’ll win.” Said Atropos.

Lacheis chuckled, “And I think mortals take destruction of important buildings a little seriously as well.”

Of course. Just what we need. Mortal law enforcement chasing after us for domestic terrorism.

The green completely encompasses my vision and I began to fade to black-or green I guess?

I heard an indignant shout from Zeus, yelling for the fates to fix him. 

Weird request but okay.

I was already so tired of this situation, the only thing I could express is apathy and sarcasm. 

I opened my eyes. I was back on the floor of Olympus. The exhaustion instantly washed over me like a giant wave crashing over an amateur surfer out way deeper than they should be.

I shook it off. If what the fates were saying was true then we need to move, and fast. I stumbled to my feet, my head suddenly feeling like a balloon with way too much helium on it. I could hear Zeus doing the same to my left.

“What happened to you guys? You just fell over! I’ve been trying to wake you up!” Percy exclaimed, his face looking pale.

“We need to go.” I gasped out, exhausted. “Quick.”

Zeus nodded off to my left, still getting his feet under him. A loud rumble sounded behind us, spurring me into action. I did not want to find out what caused that.

Zeus glanced behind him before he took off running towards the elevator door. I quickly followed after him, slowing just slightly to help Percy up and pull him to the door. I could see that he was clearly feeling the effects of blood loss from the gouges on his chest. How long had we been out for?

We ran into the elevator just as a massive crash rang throughout the agora of Olympus. I whipped my head around to see a temple falling over, and some nymphs scattering away from the crash zone in the distance. Zeus quickly selected the ground floor button, and the doors began to slide closed at an agonizingly slow pace. 

“Come on, come on, come on.” He muttered under his breath, pushing the button repeatedly in hopes of making the door go faster. We really needed to get a nicer elevator.

Just through the slowly closing crack,  I could see the golden dust of the drakon reforming. The fates must really not like us. 

The drakon formed, and dashed towards the door. Just as it swiped its massive paws at the door, slicing some of the metal with a horrible shrieking noise.

We staggered back, pressing ourselves against the back wall to get as far away from the door as possible, breathing heavily. The elevator music started playing just as the doors slid shut, creating a nice juxtaposition from the massive fire breathing snake lizard that was trying to turn us into some nice kebabs just seconds before. At least the song was peppy, it was some new girl power pop song that Apollo liked. Sabrina Carpenter I think? 

Percy slid down the elevator with a gasp, hand going up to his chest to attempt to staunch the blood flow. It wasn’t working, those cuts were pretty bad. 

I pulled off my hoodie and handed it to him to use as a temporary bandage. He nodded his thanks, pulling the hoodie against his chest. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small square of ambrosia and placed it in his mouth.

We waited in an awkward silence as the elevator descended floor after floor. Zeus and I occasionally exchanging glances in an attempt to exchange our thoughts on the prophecy. It never failed to surprise me how well I could read both him and Zeus. I guess knowing someone for a couple centuries clued you into how they think, and suddenly you're able to hold conversations with the position of your eyebrows instead of words.

The door dinged as we passed the 80th floor. I looked at Zeus, confused. He met my gaze.  He seemed to be just as uncertain as to what is happening as me. 

Our conversation went something like this:

Did you hit the 80th floor button?

No, I’m dumb, but not that dumb.

Keep up that self-confidence, it's good for you buddy.

I hope you get hit by a bus going seventy-five in a school zone. 

Are you the bus driver?

Oh I'll be the bus driver, don’t you worry.

I would be disappointed if it wasn’t you.

Obviously, It’s about the principle of the matter.

Of course it is.

Or something like that. The actual context of his threats might differ, I never can tell what sort of death threat mood he’s in.

The doors opened, and in swarmed a flock of birds that I assumed to be man eating. Most things in Greek mythology tended to eat people, gods included.(ahem, father dearest).

“Stymphalian birds!” Percy yelled from behind us, raising a hand to fend off the demons as he staggered to his feet, dropping my sweatshirt.

We ducked our heads and ran out of the elevator, deciding to take our chances with whatever else was on this floor than being bird food. THe elevator closed behind us, taking maybe a 3rd of the demon pigeons with it. I hopped the lobbyist like birds.

The floor we had emerged into was a large office room, with desks and computers evenly dotted around us in an array, facing the large windows out into the city. It was night by now, and New York had lit up. 

I dived across a desk, sending papers flying everywhere, and hid behind a swivel chair. To my right, Percy dove towards me. 

“Loud sounds,” he panted, “They hate loud sounds.”

I nodded in confirmation. I knew that of course, but there wasn’t exactly any music players in the immediate area.

I swung my head around, scanning the place for anything that might be of use in this situation. To my right I spotted a dvd player hooked up to a projector with a couple old cds next to them. 

“Perseus,” I said, gesturing toward the projector.

Percy nodded his head rapidly, obviously seeing what I was getting at. We peaked over the desk just in time to see Zeus rip off a slat on a wall and whack it against a decorative metal engraving. The birds recoiled, obviously not enjoying the noise, but it wasn’t loud enough to hold them off for long.

Percy looked over to me, and we both ran over to the projector and turned it on. While it was warming up he selected a disk and passed it to me. It placed it in the DVD player while Percy found the volume remote and cranked it all the way up while I turned up the projector volume. We pushed play and turned to face the birds. 

COMING SOON TO YOU ON BLU RAY AND DVD blasted through the room. It was just as unproportionally loud to the rest of the disk as I thought.

The birds obviously agreed, as they seemed to agree with us, as they began to fly erratically all over the room. 

“Quick! Let's get back to the elevator and get out!” Percy yelled over the noise.

“What?” We yelled back, unable to make out his words.

“The elevator!” 

I turned to the elevator, and was surprised to see the sign above it indicating the elevator rising back up. I couldn’t hear the ding over the blasting DVD advertisements, but when the elevator cracked open I could make out the blue uniforms of mortal law enforcement.

“FREEZE!”

He seemed to have a good pair of lungs on him, I thought.

My train of thought was cut off as he raised a gun and directed it at us. That didn’t last for long though, as they seemed to quickly notice the birds flying around like crazy.

“It’s some of those monsters!” one officer called as he ducked under a dive bomb from one of the demon pigeons.

“We must be dealing with mutated!”

I took the opportunity of their distraction to duck back down behind a desk. My brow furrowed in confusion, mutated? Really?

“Did  X-men teach them nothing?” Percy yelled from beside me, the DVD still blasting in the background.

I bit back a snort of laughter at the very reasonable question. I focused my eyes on the massive windows lining the walls.

“We might have to find a different way out, I doubt they’ll be letting us go after this!” I yelled back.

Percy nodded in agreement from beside me, “Do you think Zeus could use winds to slow us down enough?”

“Maybe! I doubt he’ll be conscious at the bottom though!” I answered.

“We might not have much of a choice, especially if they decide we're a threat!”

I inhaled sharply. I really did not want to find out what being shot felt like. I was used to not having to worry about mortal methods of killing. But now I was vulnerable to lead pellets. 

Oh how the mighty have fallen. 

I heard a shot ring out behind us, and I could only hope it was at a bird and not Zeus. I turned my head to the side, trying to locate my brother. He wasn’t there. I stood up, whipping around to face the officers. They were pinning Zeus to the floor, gun leveled at his chest. He struggled on the ground against their attempts to restrain him. The other ones seemed to have gathered that the birds didn’t like music, and were using the same slat to metal wall decoration technique Zeus had used earlier.

“FREEZE!” One of the officers yelled over the noise, causing the bird flock to part around him.

I reached down and grabbed a stapler from the desk I was standing behind. I reached back and threw it toward the man holding the gun. It hit him hard in the head, causing him to stumble, reaching up to touch his head. 

Zeus took the chance and broke free of the man holding him down, springing upwards and pivoting on his heel before slamming the heel of his hand into the man’s temple, sending him crashing into the wall.

He ran away and quickly dove under a desk just as a shot raced past him. The officers not preoccupied with keeping the birds at bay turned to face us, guns leveled ahead. I guess we failed on the not being considered threats part of the plan.

“Come out and we won't shoot!” yelled one of them.

I looked toward where the bathroom was off to my right, wondering if I had enough power let alone energy to pull the water in the pipes. I decided We needed to take the chance if we were planning on making it out here alive. 

Behind me I heard Percy shouting our truly awful plan to Zeus, and I could hear his equally loud proclamation of our plan’s stupidity. I turned my focus away from their argument, and focused on the network of piping filled with water waiting to be destroyed.

I closed my eyes and touched my hand to the ground, envisioning lines coming out of my fingertips and connecting to the sources of water rushing through the floor. The lines interconnected to each other and the spider webbed their way upwards toward where my hands were resting. I took a deep breath, steadying myself and finding the resolve to force the water to follow my command. When I exhaled, I tugged with the knot of power in my gut, yanking the lines up with it.

The floor exploded around the room and a shower of concrete, furniture and water. The ground rippled and was ripped up, giving way to the powerful streams of water being thrown upwards by my power. The floor threw the officers into the air, causing them to fall to the floor in a heap.

I opened my eyes, surveying the destruction around me. Strangely enough this time, I didn’t feel tired. If anything, I felt energized, almost high even. 

I hadn’t tried to move the floor, and just ripping the water in the pipes upwards wouldn’t have caused the damage surrounding me. Had I somehow managed to use some of my power of earthquakes? Demigod children of mine almost never had access to that. Maybe a slight increase in damage they could do to the earth, but nothing like this. I almost completely shredded the floor, and shattered the glass. The entire windowed wall was now missing, and the floor above us was definitely feeling some of the strain.

Percy and Zeus looked at me, wide eyed. I met their gaze just as confused as they were.

“We need to go!” I shouted. 

Zeus nodded, looking out at the large storm and pouring rain outside. 

“I think I can manage it with the storm helping me.” He said, his lips pressing into a thin line as he focused.

The officers were getting to their feet behind the pile of rubble we now sat by. By the sound of it, they were not feeling very accommodating at the moment.

“Let’s go!” Yelled Percy, dashing from his position on the ground, glancing back behind him.

Zeus and I quickly lept to our feet, dashing after him. 

“STOP!” yelled the officers as we jumped over the edge of the 80th story of the empire state building.

The wind rushed past my face, making it feel numb. The rain felt like thousands of sharp little needles being repeatedly stabbed into my face as we plummeted towards the busy streets below. I could feel the wind pick up around me, and the sound of either me or Percy screaming.

I felt a pain like none I had ever felt before. The world flashed red before turning darker than the depths of Tartarus, and I faded out, my crimson blood pooling around me….

Chapter Text

The rain thundered onto  the roof above me, creating soothing sounds of water splashing aggressively onto the shingles before dripping down. Every now and then a blast of thunder would crash above, lighting up the whole room. 

When I was little, I always loved storms. They would make me feel so small, so insignificant in the grand scheme of the world, and I found comfort in the thought that no matter my problems and nightmares, the world kept spinning, the rain kept pouring, and the thunder kept shaking the earth with its fury.

I no longer liked storms, though. What once had given me  feelings of awe and was now the very cause of my anxiety and fear. Because to him, I was small, and I was insignificant, but the world no longer could keep spinning without me. They had proven that to me when they had forced me away from home at seven, and made me fight in two wars before I had even graduated highschool. To them, I was a cog, a tool to be used and discarded when I had served my purpose. 

In lieu of the comfort the sky had once given me, I now found in the ocean. The steady, crashing beat of the waves against a beach, the unpredictability of it. Kind to those who care, provides for those who are in need, and wrathful to those who dare take advantage of it. I found a peace in the chaos of the ever turning waves. A peace in the one who embodied it.

I smiled at the thought of Percy. Tomorrow. I thought. Tomorrow I will get to see seaweed brain. Summer started tomorrow, and that meant I was heading down to camp. Down to cabins that were no longer just twelve, but many more because of all we had fought for, and all we would continue too. Percy had been by my side for five years through every pain and turmoil, and I by his. 

I couldn’t think of a single person I would rather have faced the world with.

I was snapped out of my thoughts by a loud rapping noise on my door, rising over the down pour of rain clanking against the roof.

“Annabeth! Come see what’s on the TV!” I heard my father yell urgently.

“Why?” I shouted back, confused.

Neither of my parents were especially fond of the news or politics, so I wondered what had caught they’re attention enough to make them want to talk about and share it.

“You’ll want to see this, trust me!” He said, not offering an explanation to my confusion.

I pushed myself up off the bed with a huff, swinging my feet out over the floor and getting up. I walked over to the door, swinging it open and being blinded by the light in the kitchen- a stark contrast to the darkness of my room. I turned the corner and walked into the small living room and went to stand behind the old, green couch resting a couple feet away from a TV. I could just see my father and my step-mom standing I front of me, obscuring the TV from view. I glanced at the clock; 10:00.  My step-brothers were probably in bed.

“What is it?” I said grumpily. I was tired and ready to check in for the night, excited to get to camp tomorrow.

My father turned around, his eyes slightly wide. He took a slight step to the left, offering me a more clear view of the TV and said, “ Look.”

A small worm of annoyance found its way into my heart at the lack of answers I was being given, but I looked up at the TV anyways. All of my annoyance drained as I saw the picture on the screen.

A helicopter was circling the Empire State Building— what made the news crew think that was a good  idea in this weather, I don’t know— and they were trying to focus their camera through the rain at the gaping hole in the side of the building, about 80 floors up.

“What happened there!” I exclaimed. Did someone who worked on that floor offended Zeus or something?

My father shook his head. “We don’t know, it only just happened.”

I looked back at the TV as the news reporter began to talk.

“Officers who were in the building before the explosion report seeing three supernatural individuals on the way down from a higher floor. They cornered them on the 80th floor while they were fighting aggressive  bird-like creatures.  

They report that the birds seemed to be afraid of loud sounds, as that is what the three perpetrators were doing to keep them at bay. Once the officers turned to confront them, the perps showed resistance, and a black haired teen destroyed the floor and walls, and launched water out of the plumbing. The three of them then jumped out of the building.”

My eyes widened. Percy? The guy definitely sounded like him, and I could see him being a part of some plot against the Empire State Building, and he definitely had a track record for blowing up national monuments.

My dad turned to face me, “Do you think that’s-“

“Percy?” I questioned, my grip tightening on the couch, “I hope not, but I doubt there’s very many demigods out there who could blow up a side of a building like that, and the description does match him.”

I pursed my lips nervously as I turned my gaze back to the screen.

“Warning for all viewers, the next scenes will be slightly graphic and may be unsuitable for some.”

I felt my stomach drop. No, it couldn’t be. He had to be okay, it was Percy, he would find a way out.

The scene switched to one of the walkways far below the building, a large pool of blood spread out on the sidewalk, staining it a violent red.

I felt my blood go cold. There were no bodies, so that was good, but obviously they were badly hurt, and in no world would they be conscious with that much blood on the ground. Someone must have found them and gotten them out of there. 

I glanced towards the door, considering how fast I could get there. I needed to make sure Percy was safe, and I couldn’t be able to send an iris message this late.

The woman reporting the story turned to an officer as he walked up, “ officer, could you explain to us what happened up there? And where the perps are?”

“We got a call from an unknown caller, giving us an anonymous tip that someone was planning to blow up the building. When we arrived, the clerk told us what floor they were on and we got into the elevator.

When we arrived at the sight of the crime, it appeared the trio was being attacked by some unclassified monsters. They had turned in a dvd player and were blasting it as loud as they could to disorient the birds.

We captured one of the perps-the blonde one, and managed to restrain him. The black haired one who blew the piping, uh, managed to catch me off guard and the perp broke free.” The man stated, shifting a little uncomfortably as he gazed into the camera.

The Tv went fuzzy in my vision as my brain started to try to put the pieces together. Blonde one? Who could that be? My first thought went to Jason, but that was unlikely. Maybe Will? That was the only other blonde guy I could think of who Percy actually talked to. I doubted the Will theory though as well, he would never have gotten himself into this situation.

And the TV said that there were three people, but only two had been mentioned. Percy was almost certainly the black haired person, and there was a blonde guy. But we hadn’t been given a description of the third guy. Leo maybe? He was the most likely.

“The perpetrators jumped out of the building and most likely landed here, sustaining what looks to be serious injuries. But no bodies have been found. We currently have reason to believe that a fellow associate of the supernatural persons was around, and moved their bodies.”

“Thank you, sir.” Said the woman, turning back to the camera.

“If anyone has seen three teenagers confirmed to be mutants and matching this description please contact the police and stay away, even though they are most likely in need of medical care, they are still dangerous; the first one appears to be about 6’2, black hair, green eyes and tan though appears to be mostly Caucasian. The second one-the one who blew up the floor, appears almost exactly the same, but taller and looks to be Greek. The third one is about 6’5, blonde hair, blue eyes, and also appears to be Greek in ethnicity.”

My Dad turned his eyes to me, confusion evident on his face, “does Percy have a brother?”

“Not a mortal one that I know of.” I answered, brow furrowed in confusion. “It is always possible that Poseidon had another secret kid that we don’t know about though.”

I nodded my head, turning to my room to go and get more suitable clothes for the weather, “ I need to get down there.” I said.

My Father looked at me, concern written all over his face. He sighed, “ I know I can’t stop you, but be safe Annabeth. Please.”

“Of course, when am I not?” I asked, a small grin playing on my lips.

“If it wasn’t a concern I wouldn’t have asked.” He replied with a matching, though much more tight smile.

My grin widened, then I turned away, racing towards my room. I threw open the door and quickly threw on a hoodie and jeans. I grabbed my pack that I had prepared for camp, and checked the medical compartment to make sure I had what I would most likely need.

I flew out of my room and down the hall, shoving my shoes on and reaching for the knob of the door.

Bang bang

A rapid banging in the door interrupted my progress.  I frowned in confusion, now hesitantly reaching for the door. I turned the handle and cracked the door open.

“Annabeth!”

“Leo?” I threw the door the rest of the way open. 

He stood on the floor just outside my apartment, dripping wet with a frantic look in his eyes. Before I could say anything, he continued.

“The news! Did you see the news!” 

I nodded my head quickly. “ Yes Leo! I would love to talk but I need to go, that could have been Percy!” I said, trying to shove past him.

Leo stopped me, looking up at me frantically, “I know, I know! I heard the building explode so I rushed over there, I found them lying in the ground! I called Festus and moved them out of the way so the cops didn’t get them, but Percy needs medical help fast; andIdon’thaveanythingonmeandIdontknowwhattodosoIthoughtohAnnabethlivesclosebyand-“

“Leo! I get it, let's go!” I said angrily. Percy could be bleeding out right now and Leo was trying to recite the dictionary to me!

He nodded numbly, turning to sprint down the staircase. I followed close behind him.

“ where are they?” I put them in an alleyway just outside your apartment complex!” I tried to get them out of the rain, but there’s not much shelter.”

I nodded, thankful that Leo had the foresight to get them close to us.

“The rain will be good for Percy, it might help his injuries, how bad are the other two?

I think Percy’s twin is the most hurt, his head was bleeding a lot but I managed to stem the flow, but he definitely had a concussion and some broken bones. Percy looks roughed up but he’ll live, and the blonde is just unconscious to the best of my knowledge.”

I nodded grimly, bursting out through the lobby and into the rain. Leo quickly turned the corner and walked into the alley where the trash was. I could see festus hunched over three prone forms, and I was suddenly very glad for the pouring rain cover. 

I sprinted up next to them, and kneeled down, looking at them. The second I played eyes on Percy, my confusion grew. 

I assumed the black haired guy must have been Percy when I saw the news, but laying right next to what I knew for sure to be Percy was almost his identical clone, just more tan. 

What made the situation even more confusing was that as water hit his face, I could see scratches on his body begin to fade.

Leo ran up from behind, crouching down beside me, “See? Percy twin. Does he have a secret brother or something?”

I shook my head, just as confused. “If he does, then they just met.  Because I’ve never seen him before.”

Leo nodded, eyes narrowed, “is he- is the rain healing him?” 

“I think so.” I answered, my attention turning to the real Percy, who seemed to be mostly fine. The rain was dealing with any cuts and abrasions on him, and some ambrosia and a once over from Will would probably be enough, same with the blonde.

I gently lifted Percy’s look alike’s head, and place som nectar into his mouth, tilting his head back and forcing him to swallow. He made a slight choking sound, and coughed before falling back into the endless ocean of unconsciousness.

I turned to Leo, “ do you think Festus could get us to camp? This guy needs medical attention, and quick.” 

I glanced down at his body, I could see his right arm twisted at a unnatural angle, and his wrist was definitely shattered. His right ankle also seemed to be broken.

I looked around, and grabbed what appeared to be one old wooden dowel. Grimacing, I set the bones in his arm, cringing at the awful crunching sound. I broke the dowel into two, and carefully, place it down next to his arm, reaching into my pack to pull out gauze. I wrapped it around the arm firmly, immobilizing it. I did the same for his ankle, but decided to leave his wrist alone. It was definitely out of my first aid skill level,

I decided to not treat any to the cuts either, seeing as the rain seemed to be healing them, and it would do a better job than me anyways. I did how ever carefully wrap some gauze around his head to help stem the flow of blood from the wound.

I turned to Leo once again, “ can you help me get them situated on Festus?”

He nodded, “yeah, let’s get them to camp.”

Chapter Text

The first thing I saw when I regained consciousness was the golden sun of Apollo filtering through a window. The second thing I saw— and the much more beautiful sight—, was my girlfriend, Annabeth, sitting in a chair next to the bed I was laying in. 

The light shone through the window, illuminating the half of her face turned towards it in a golden, ethereal glow, making her look even more beautiful. Her hair fell in waves of golden curls down her shoulders, and she was wearing a camp tee and jean shorts. It was simple, yet absolutely stunning on her.  

I hadn’t realized just how much I had missed her these past few weeks. She had gone to visit some of her step-mom’s family, and had just gotten back yesterday.

I shifted in the bed, letting out a small, feeble groan. As nice as it was to see her, she didn’t get rid of the pounding headache I was currently experiencing, or the throbbing in my arms. I turned to look down at myself. 

I must have made more noise than I thought I did, because Annabeth turned to face me from where she had been sitting, a smile gracing her features.

“You still drool when you sleep.” She said softly, her grin growing as she said it.

I felt a matching smile play on my lips at the reminder of the first time we had been in this situation. 

“Thanks for the reminder, wise girl.” I replied, letting out a slight cough after I finished. My throat felt drier than the earth when Thalia scorched the world with the sun chariot.

Her grin grew soft at my answer. She helped me up into a sitting position, and gently raised a glass of nectar to my lips. I drank it greedily, savoring the wonderful taste of happy memories in the kitchen with my mom, and home. 

“How are you feeling? You three made the news with whatever stunt you pulled, and there was a lot of blood where you landed.” She asked, concern seeping into her voice.

“Worse than I thought I thought I was going to when I jumped,” I said with a scowl, “But better than I should be all things considered. But can we go back to the news thing? What happened?” I finished.

I couldn’t remember much after I jumped off of the building, just flashes of more emotions than actually memories. But I did recall a faint feeling that Zeus had not done as good of a job breaking our fall as he said he would. Typical of him honestly, just from what I've gathered from my short, miserable and event filled hours with him and my father.

“I should be the one asking you what happened, seaweed brain. Why were you in the empire state building? And who are those two?”

Ahh, right, they were there as well, so they were probably also here. 

I turned my head, looking at the pair now lying prone on separate medical beds in the infirmary. This was going to get messy, confusing, and very challenging to explain.

“Uh, it's a long story. And a weird one. And it's really confusing.” I said, gently scratching the back of my head. I had no idea how I was going to explain this.

“Leo found you guys right after you blew up the building, your evil twin seemed like he was hurt pretty bad. Will got him stable, so he’ll be fine. But could you care to explain why you have a new sibling? The rain was healing him too.” she turned her head to where Zeus was lying, “And who is this guy anyways? I’m assuming he was the one who let you guys survive the fall.”

“Umm.” I said intelligently, panic welling up in my chest. I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do in this situation, school didn’t prepare me for this.

“Uh, yeah, Ze- um, I mean blondie is the one who broke our fall, not very well evidently, but uh, yeah.” I said nervously.

Annabeth gave me a curious look, obviously knowing that I was omitting all of the key details. “Who’s his parent then? That seems like a Zeus thing, but we definitely should have known about him by now, and he looks about the same age as you.”

I could feel sweat dripping down my brow. I hated lying, especially to Annabeth. And it definitely was not my forte. That’s what the Stolls are for, not me.

Thankfully though, Will chose that time to barge in, saving me from having to lie very poorly to my girlfriend.

“Alright Annabeth, sorry, you’ll have to leave for a bit so I can check on the-” Will looked up from his clipboard, making eye contact with me, his eyes widening, “Oh, Perce! You're awake!”

I nodded, relief washing over me like a tidal wave. Annabeth would have seen through me instantly. And while I had no qualms with her knowing, something had happened to Dad and Zeus, and I thought it would be better to learn what that was before I told anyone about the current problem we had on our hands.

Will set his clipboard down on a desk and walked over to me. He gently placed his hands on my chest, and they lit up in a warm glow. A slight frown of concentration came over his face, and the tip of his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth. 

“You seem like you're all good, but I would prefer it if you would take it easy for the rest of the week.” He said, his head shaking. “I don’t know what you did to survive a fall like that with only minor injuries, but good job.” He said as he turned to treat Poseidon.

“Your look-alike here sustained the most serious injuries, but by the time Leo and Annabeth brought him here, he was mostly healed. I checked his arm and ankle, set his hand, gave him some Ambrosia and he was almost perfectly fine within a few hours.” Will said thoughtfully, “Annabeth said water helped, so I put some on the mending bones and it went even faster. Got an explanation for that Percy? None of you should have survived that fall, demigod or not.”

“Apparently, goldie locks had something to do with them not dying from the fall.” Said Annabeth helpfully, though not very helpful to my case.

Will’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? And how did he manage that?” his frown deepening.

“wind control? That would suggest a child of Zeus though.” He said, taking his glowing hands off of my dad and walking over to where Zeus was.

“I thought the same thing, but we should have known about a seventeen year old son of Zeus. He would have been in the running for the first great prophecy then.” Said Annabeth contemplatively, “Maybe a minor wind god? Would they even produce children powerful enough to control wind that well?” 

“He didn’t do it that well.” I muttered under my breath, shaking my numb arms grumpily.

Annabeth’s head snapped towards me, “He did control wind?” She said, alarmed.

Oops.

“Uh,-”

“Don’t try to cover your tracks now, seaweed brain, it's too late.” Annabeth interrupted.

I swallowed thickly, my skin suddenly feeling a little too tight for my body.

“That’s not good for us.” Will said nervously, “We really don’t need another Thalia situation. Maybe if we're lucky, he might be roman? Will said hopefully.

Annabeth turned her head to look at me inquisitively. I shifted uncomfortably under her scrutinizing gaze. 

“I doubt it. Where did you find these two Percy? They both seem like they’re kids of the big three. And no offense, but that's really not good for us.”

Oh how close yet far they were from the truth, I thought. Both of the blonde terrors with way too many questions for my own good turned to me, expecting an answer.

“Percy, why aren’t you telling us what happened?” Annabeth inquired, eyes narrowed.

At that moment, problem person #2 woke up, once again saving me from uncomfortable questions.

“Fu-” my Dad started, quickly stopping as he made eye contact with a confused looking Will now glaring at him instead of me. Apparently he took that as a "don't cuss in front of me" look, and not a, “how dare you be confusing, get hurt and instantly sit up that fast and probably be Percy’s secret sibling from his hoe of a dad” look.

I felt for him, not a fun look to be on the receiving end of. Minus the hoe part, that was definitely deserved.

“Uh, hi?” he said, raising his hand to gently rub his head. 

“What were you doing at the Empire State Building and why was Percy there?” Annabeth said, glaring at him.

Apparently, they were more worried about my well-being than the random strangers(ehem, the almighty, immortal hoes). I knew I liked my friends for a good reason.

“Uh, good morning to you too?” My dad said, dryly, his face slightly scrunched up into an offended expression at the lack of decorum.

“Who are you evil Percy look-alike?” Will asked, continuing the grilling without any regard for the guy who just took the brunt of a swan dive off of the 80th story of a building.

“Uh, first of all, he’s the one who looks like me, get it right. And second of all, aren’t doctors supposed to like, care about the people who just fell off a building? And, not question their existence?” He said affronted.

I snorted at my Dad’s response. Apparently sass was a dominant gene from both of my parents. 

“You just committed domestic terrorism against a very important national landmark.” Annabeth responded dryly. 

That’s my wise girl, I thought. My amusement at the situation at hand growing every second.

“ It was just terrorism.” He shot back indignantly, the look of offense on his face growing.

“Domestic terrorism,” Annabeth started, “The committing of terrorist acts in the perpetrator’s own country against their fellow citizens. Oxford” Annabeth recited.

Did she really have the Oxford definition of domestic terrorism memorized? I would totally believe she did, that seems like something she would do just in case she ran into a situation very similar to this.

“I’m not an American, bird brain. I use the metric system to measure things, not eagles per cheeseburger.” He said, some annoyance seeping into his tone.

I couldn’t even find it in myself to be mad that my father just called my girlfriend bird brain, I was too invested in this argument to stop. I glanced over to where Will was standing, he seemed to be in a similar boat as me.

“First of all, I probably know the metric system better than you. Second of all, if you live in this country, you're a citizen, so it is domestic terrorism.” she shot back heatedly.

“Please, I don’t pay taxes, the IRS fears me.”

“That's because you are a minor.”

“I’m richer than half of this country combined, I technically do have to pay taxes.”

“Daddy’s money huh? Are you a preppy trust fund kid?”

“I sent my daddy on a one way express to the depths of hell when I was fifteen after he tried to bite my arm off!”

“So you admit to murdering your father? Oh this is so much better than terrorism!”

“I would do it again!”

“Want me to give you a one way ticket too?” Annabeth answered, voice raising.

“Get in line! I would like to see you try!”

“I know a prince of the underworld, you're not going to win this fight!” She said sassily.

“Okay, and? The lord of hell sends me birthday cards!”

“Huh?!” Will said, confused.

“Huh?” Annabeth said, her confused expression reaching its apex. She turned to Will, baffled, “that’s the thing that confuses you?” before turning back to Poseidon, probably ready to continue her argument and tell him what an awful, pathological liar he was.

“No, I’m confused because I can’t feel him lying!” Will exclaimed, confused.

“Huh?” Now it was Annabeth’s turn to be confused.

A snort came from my far right. “Pretty sure I watched the two of them get in a fight over the dog token in Monopoly last week,” said Zeus, stretching his arms.

Subconsciously, I acknowledged the fact that they didn't seem to care about telling people who they were, but I was a little hung up on the monopoly fact. I couldn’t envision my Dad or Hades fighting over something like that. My Dad and Zeus? Definitely, but I couldn’t envision Hades getting worked up about anything, let alone interacting with his family.

 Suddenly, it hit me that out of all of us, the one who had failed to save us from sustaining grievous injuries was the only one who was practically uninjured, and that decidedly pissed me off.

Apparently, it hit my Dad at the same time, because he let out an annoyed scoff at the sound of his brother regaining consciousness.

“Why are you the one who is okay?” I exclaimed, “It’s your fault we got hurt anyways!”

Zeus’ eyes narrowed at me, and he responded, scowling, “because you two jumped too early. I didn’t.”

I heard another scoff from beside me, “Yeah, right, you were just focusing on not being a pikachu pancake.”

Zeus snapped his gaze to his brother, anger simiring in his gaze.

“Alright, what is going on?” Will finally said.

All three of us snapped to attention, looking at Will nervously.

“Uh, it was an accident?” My dad offered, not remotely helpfully.

“I don’t care if it was an accident, I just want to know why we have two more big three kids!” Annabeth all but shouted, frustration at not getting answers finally peaking.

“I think you should have to explain it, seeing as your the reason I am in this mess in the first place.” Poseidon said pointedly, glaring at Zeus.

With a huff, he glared at me and Poseidon, staying silent for a moment. When he realized that I agreed with my Dad’s assessment, he muttered something probably unhelpful under his breath, and turned to face Annabeth and Will.

He took another long glance at his brother, opening his mouth and then closing it, before turning back to Poseidon.

“Why don’t you-”

“Tell them, brother.”

I could see the confusion on both Annabeth and Will’s face grow at that statement, probably wondering how in the world the two immortal hoes had slept with the same woman and had similarly aged kids. Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing in Greek mythology to be fair.

He turned away with a sigh, opened his mouth and jerked his thumb towards Poseidon. 

“This isn't a son of Poseidon. That is Poseidon.”

Me and my father both shot Zeus the same look of incredulous exasperation. 

“What? How about you start with you getting yelled at by you old hag children? And then getting smote down into a trash can and attacked by trash snakes and then needing me to shove them into a dumpster for you, Zeus?”

I looked back to Annabeth and Will. Both of their brains appeared to be short circuiting, and Annabeth seemed to be processing the fact that she just got into a heated argument with my father, and one of the most powerful gods.

I could hear Zeus and Poseidon bickering in the background, but my attention was on Annabeth and Will as I waited to see their reaction.

They both seemed to snap out of whatever zone they had been in, and both looked incredulously at the two arguing gods, before looking over to me. I gave them a tight smile, nodded my head towards the two of them.

“Lord Zeus, you and Poseidon, er- lord Poseidon got turned mortal? Am I correct in saying that?”

The pair halted their meaningless bickering, and turned to face wise girl. My dad gave another pointed look at his brother, beckoning him to continue.

With a scowl and another angry sigh(he did that a lot), he continued “Fine. We got turned mortal by the Fates. They told us-”

“You” My Dad interjected helpfully.

Zeus once again glared angrily at his brother before continuing, “Us.”

Poseidon rolled his eyes, mummering under his breath.

“They told us, that we have accidentally been cutting strings of mortals too early, and we need to fix the problem. They then turned us mortal—for some inconceivable reason thinking that would help us fix the problem—and smote us down into a New York alleyway.”

“Where you landed in the trash.” Poseidon once again interjected helpfully.

I found myself appreciating my father’s dedication to making sure the truth of the situation was told, and I could tell by the growing expressions of amusement/incredulity that Annabeth and Will felt similar.

“Will you stop that?”

“What, saying the truth?”

“Why don’t you share how you landed then? You haven’t told me, so it's worse than how I landed.” Zeus snapped at his brother.

Poseidon let a relaxed, pleased grin spread across his face in response, “Sure, the truth is important.” He said, turning to face the rest of us.

I could see Will struggling to hold back a laugh, his bottom lip quivering with the effort. We locked eyes, and my smile grew.

“Uh yeah, I fell out of the sky and landed on some pizza delivery guy. He was unconscious when I left-but still breathing! I didn’t kill anyone. I think.” My Dad answered, scratching the back of his head. 

He seemed to do that when he was uncomfortable or embarrassed, just another one of many things we seemed to have in common with each other. In the short time they had been here, I had been surprised by not just how similar we looked, but how similar we acted too. He had a lot of the same mannerism as me, and it was starting to creep me out how alike I was to him.

Will couldn’t stifle the laugh any longer. He broke out into quiet chuckles. He raised a hand to cover his mouth and turned away, snickering. 

I found I was also in a similar boat, bringing my hand up to cover my face. That poor guy, I hope the pizza was okay after that.

Annabeth seemed to be reaching the end of her rope as well, but was handling it much better than Will or I was.

“You fell on a pizza man?” she asked disbelievingly.

“Yep.” Poseidon said, popping the P.

“Anyways,” Zeus bemoaned, “I got out of the way of sime basilisks, and then Poseidon showed up and we took care of them.”

“How did you guys take care of them without celestial bronze?” Will asked curiously, “I mean, unless I'm missing something, it doesn’t sound like you had anything.”

I furrowed my brow at the comment. That was a good point, they hadn’t had any weapons on arrival, how had they managed to kill a couple basilisks? Both Zeus and Dad didn’t know they had access to some powers before arriving.l, so that ruled out using any abilities.

“No we didn’t. Poseidon used a recorder and a broken golf club to get them into position so we could push a dumpster on top of them and get out before they could melt the metal.” Zeus explained, annoyed at the interruption.

Ahh, the good old dumpster diving for an impromptu weapon. I would say I’ve been there, but I haven’t, my sword returns to me.

“A recorder? How does that do anything?” Annabeth asked, trying to figure out how that would have worked.

How come they never gave me the details of their embarrassing exploits after being thrown down to earth by an old lady? That wasn’t fair at all!

“Why didn’t you guys  didn’t you guys tell me this part? This is much more interesting than the story you gave me.” I said grumpily.

“You never asked.” My dad said, looking at me. He turned his head to face Annabeth, “And have you ever heard someone play a recorder? It would make anyone run away.”

Annabeth nodded her head, shrugging. “Fair point I guess, points for creativity.” She said, turning back to Zeus who was looking very frustrated at the constant interruptions.

“Oh, sorry, please continue.” she said with false politeness, looking back to Zeus.

He let out a long suffering sigh and continued; “We made it to Perseus’ place of residence, and told him of our situation. We then planned to break back into Olympus and get someone to turn us back into gods.”

“Well, that obviously didn’t work.” Annabeth stated matter of factly.

Zeus blinked slowly, taking a deep breath to calm himself before continuing, “No, once we got past the defences in place, Poseidon and I were knocked out and brought before the Fates in a council. They gave us a prophecy, and then turned us away, calling for the mortal authorities and reviving the drakon we had just killed. We escaped to a lower floor, but were met by stymphalian birds. The mortals arrived shortly after, and Poseidon blew up the room before we jumped off the building, and I slowed our fall.”

“Very poorly, my limbs would like to add.” Poseidon said, gesturing to his arm that was wrapped in a cast.

Annabeth nodded thoughtfully—a slight smirk adorning her features at Poseidon’s comment—, before asking, “What was the prophecy you were given? Do you have any idea what it might be about?”

The two gods shared a look, probably attempting to figure out what to say next, before turning back to us.

Poseidon answered this time:

“When the storm rages and the skies are torn asunder,

 the hand of Midas rises,

 a force against the thunder,

Beware of shattered suns and venomous spite,

And the stolen souls of those who have been struck by the widow’s bite.

As the blind one turns its eye to heaven,

Only the united can stand without reckon”

A silence fell over the room as we let the news of another prophecy sink in. And this didn’t sound like a short prophecy detailing a quick quest, this sounded serious. Was this another great prophecy? I hoped not, I’ve had enough of those to last me multiple lifetimes and then some. I would rather take a swan dive off the Empire State Building again then go through another great prophecy.

The hand of Midas, the blind one, Thunder, the widow, shattered suns… it sounded like there were going to be a lot of players in whatever this prophecy was referring too. I was assuming that the storm and lighting analogies were referring to my father and uncle, but I had no clue who the others could be. Hopefully, none of them were me.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Annabeth, who quickly turned to face Will where he was standing off to the side looking contemplative. 

“Do you think stolen souls could refer to the missing demigods?” She asked, her brow slightly furrowing

“That’s what I was thinking.” Will replied.

I looked between them, anxiously. More demigods-campers even, going missing was the last thing I wanted. The last one to have disappeared was a thirteen year son of Hecate named Phillip. He was scheduled to arrive at camp for Christmas break, and just never showed up. Chiron contacted his family, and they said they hadn’t seen him. They had dropped him off near the border, but he had never crossed it. Somewhere in the one hundred or so feet, he had simply disappeared.

Phillip loved camp, and had shown a lot of promise to be an incredible fighter some day. He was a natural with weapons, and had access to some of Hecate’s lesser attributes, and had the ability to communicate with dogs and other canines. 

I could see why that line could be referring to disappearing campers. But what worried me more than just the phrasing of that line was the inclusion of it in the first place. If it was relevant enough to include in a prophecy, did that mean it was going to get worse? Who would disappear next? What if it was one of my friends, or the younger campers?

What if it was Annabeth?

Has anyone else been taken that we know of?” I asked, worriedly.

Annabeth shook her head, soothing me. Good, another person going missing really would be awful. 

I swallowed nervously, pushing those thoughts to the side to focus on the current situation at hand. Worrying about it wouldn’t change anything and, if there was anything I have learned from my extensive questing and prophecy experience, it’s that you should never take a prophecy at face value.

Poseidon looked between the three of us, confusion written on his face, “Have demigods been going missing?” he asked.

“Yeah, how did you guys not know that?” I asked, disappointment welling up inside of me. 

Had the gods really not noticed their own kids going missing? Had they not noticed the situation the mortals had put us in? We were being hunted down to most likely be used as lab rats-guinea pigs for the mortals. We were seen as a threat, and now we had to live in even more fear than before. It wasn’t just monsters coming after us anymore, it was people too.

“It’s not like you're the one missing Percy, how would I know?” My father answered.

I doubted he would even notice if I was missing. He sure hadn’t done anything when I fell into Tartarus with Annabeth. Did he really even care about me when I wasn’t doing quests to bring him glory? I doubted he would. Those thoughts made a bitter taste taint my tongue, anger at the injustice demigods constantly had to endure to keep these pricks in power.

“Would you even notice if I was the one missing? I’m just a nuisance to you that sometimes does some big crazy quest, or is the center of some big prophecy that brings you glory. Don’t pretend like you actually care about me, Don’t pretend like i'm not just a tool to you!”

Poseidon actually flinched back a little. His eyes looked hurt at my words. Did he really think that I actually thought he cared about me? I wasn’t going to let myself be deluded into thinking that. It would bring me nothing but misery.

“Of course I would notice! Why- Is that really what you think?” He exclaimed, seemingly taken aback by my words.

“Sure didn’t notice when I was walking through Tartarus to save you guys from your own problems!” I said, rising from my seated position, wobbling slightly as I rose.

Annabeth stood up l, reaching out to steady me, and gently try to push me back down onto the bed. I shook her off, glaring at the person who was only my father by blood.

He stared at me, seemingly surprised. Was he really going to play it up to try to make me feel bad? I wasn’t going to let him manipulate me like that. I knew my place, and I was fine with it. I didn’t need or want him to be my father anymore.

I had Paul now. And Paul was better than anything I could have hoped for from him. He was the one there to watch all my swim meets, he was the one who would stay up late to help me on a homework assignment I didn’t get, he was the one who unconditionally supported me and was there for me when I needed him. Poseidon was just my heritage, just a name I had attached to me. I meant nothing to him, and he meant nothing to me

The room was completely silent. Annabeth was looking at me sympathetically, and Will was looking anywhere but at the three of us.

I took a deep breath, calming myself before starting towards the door. I had completed my part of the deal. They were on their own for the rest of whatever prophecy there was now. I was going to walk out the door, and completely forget about this situation. I was going to go down to the beach, and I was going to dive under the water where no one would find me. 

“He’ll be able to find you.” My mind whispered. 

I shook the thought away. I didn’t matter, he wasn't going to go looking for me, he didn't care.

I whipped around and stormed towards the door, prying it open and running directly into the chest of someone.

I recoiled back, a bit of pain shooting up my spine at the contact.

“Woah, there Pedro. Watch where you're stomping.” 

Dionysus, or Mr. D stood in the doorway I had just tried to walk out of, stretching a hand out to steady me, -which I was reluctantly grateful for- and trapping me inside. Great. There goes my running away from my problems strategy.

He glanced down at me and said, “I guess I’m glad to see you up and about or something. Chiron forced me to come see the other two you dragged with you on your swan dive off Olympus. Wonderful television by the way, most interesting news story I’ve seen in decades.”

He pushed me to the side, sauntering into the infirmary. I turned around, a sudden, nervous curiosity coursing through me as I wondered whether or not Mr. D would recognize his father and uncle sitting in the room.

I kept telling myself that it wasn’t going to happen, he was just going to ask a bit about some of the new “campers”, probably insult them and everyone else in the room, and leave.  He wouldn’t recognize them, my Dad looked significantly different, and Zeus was like a completely different person. If you just showed me a picture of him, I probably would have told you he gave off a nice guy energy, if not a little sullen.

“Have the new demi-brats told you anything yet Wilson-”

Mr. D halted what he was saying, completely freezing when he looked at the two bedridden occupants. His mouth went slack and hung open slightly, eyes going wide. His face also lost all color, making him look paler than Nico in the winter.  He blinked a couple times as if trying to process what he was seeing, and then brought a fist to his eyes and rubbed aggressively, as if trying to clear his vision.

It didn't work, I’ve tried.The two of them. would be gone by now if it did.

“Father? Uncle? Wha-” he stammered out, confusion written all over his face.

Apparently he did recognize them. That wasn’t good.

Annabeth and Will look between Zeus and Dionysus, probably also struggling to figure out how he recognized them so fast.

“Dionysos.” Zeus said curtly.

Zeus shook his head, probably trying to clear his mind, “why?” Is all he said.

“I want to know why you immediately recognized them!” Annabeth said, baffled.

“I got into an argument about terrorism and tax evasion with the god of the sea before I realized who they were! I’m probably going to get the Pasiphae treatment after this is all over now!”

Oh he better not give Annie the Pasiphae treatment. I would personally hunt him down, drag him out of his kingdom and feed him to a swarm of kangaroos if that happened.

I shot a glare at my father to let him know exactly what I was thinking.  Our eyes met,  and he had the audacity to look offended at that insinuation. 

“I wouldn’t do that to you for telling me I’m a trust fund terrorist baby!” He said indignantly.

“Yes you would.” Zeus said flatly.

“Not to her! Do you know the awful things that would happen to me if I did that?” 

Mr. D blinked a couple times, ignoring Poseidon and Zeus’ small petty squabble, and instead choosing to give Annabeth a rare straight answer.

“They both looked like this when they were younger. Zeus changed his hair to black because Hades and Poseidon bullied him out of being blonde.”

“What! No!” Zeus scoffed.

Both Poseidon and Mr. D raised an eyebrow at that.

Zeus swallowed, and sat himself more upright, looking down at the blanket on his legs quietly.

Mr. D let out a tired sigh,(as if he had the right to be annoyed at this, I was the one who had to deal with them.) shaking his head slightly in exasperation. 

“Alright, what happened to you two? Why do you both feel like mortal demigods?”

When the two of them had finished recounting their story for the second time, Mr. D plopped down in a chair with another long sigh, a light smirk on his face as he shook his head exasperatedly.

“Of course, why didn’t I think of that? You two blowing up the Empire State Building makes so much more sense the Percival over here doing it!” He said with a wild gesture in my direction, his voice rising in pitch as he continued, finishing in a very much hysterical tone.

He rose to his feet once again, glancing over to where I now sat with Annabeth and Will.

“I need to go tell Chiron what’s happened, for now, the best course of action is to just announce the situation and then treat them as campers. That prophecy sounds like it’s going to affect a lot of demi-brats, and I guess they have the right to know or something.”

“He looked back to where my father and Zeus were sitting, looking thoroughly put out of it at this point. I was pretty sure Poseidon had fallen asleep during Zeus’ second recounting of the incident. 

“Go to dinner, all of you. Don’t say anything to the other kids, I’ll make Chiron take care of that.” Dionysus said, rubbing his face with his hand before turning away and muttering, “I need a drink.”

That apparently was all Zeus needed to snap out of whatever haze he had been in since waking up in camp. 

“You're on probation, Dionysos. You're not going to drink anything.” He said seriously, though the effect was ruined by the fact he was currently very much not able to take the old sot in a fight right now.

Mr. D stopped in his tracks, his shoulders shaking slightly in amusement before whipping around to face his father.

“And what are you going to do about it?” He said, cackling. “Oh, this is great! You can’t do anything to me!” 

With that, he turned and walked out of the building, laughing the whole way out.

Zeus seethed angrily on the bed, before rising to his feet, prepared to storm out after his son before thinking better of picking a fight with a god, even one who was weakened like Dionysus was. But that realization didn’t stop him from exiting the room in a rush.

“Dinner is in 30 minutes!” I called out nonchalantly after him.

we all stared at the door he had exited from, saying nothing.

“I probably should get going,” said Annabeth after a couple beats of silence. “I’ve left my cabin alone for most of the day”

Will nodded, saying something about checking on a younger sibling before following Annabeth.

All of a sudden, I was left alone in a room with the very person I had been trying to avoid.

I got up to follow the rest of them out. I hadn’t been to camp since the end of last summer, and the second giant war. I was excited to see old friends and new campers. And I didn’t want to waste anymore time around the two gods who had been turned mortal. 

There has been a surprising boom in the number of campers recently. We had gotten around fifteen new campers this year, including the ones who had showed up at the end of last summer.  

One of those campers was a little girl named Ava. She was a daughter of Dionysus and a legacy of Aphrodite (don’t ask me how Mr. D managed to pull someone related to Aphrodite in his current state). And she was the most adorable little thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. 

She was about five years old, and had been taken from an abusive foster household after her mother had died from alcohol poisoning. Apparently, Thalia and a group of hunters had seen a little girl covered in mud being chased by a hellhound in the rain. Thalia and her hunters had taken care of the hellhound, and taken her to camp. She had immediately fallen in love with Thalia, and Thalia adored her with everything she had as well. She had become rather fond of me, too. 

Dionysus had claimed her almost the second she had stepped into camp, and He adored the girl. Neither of them seemed to talk to each other much-I don’t think either of them knew how to act around each other- but they clearly cared for each other and wanted to be closer.

She had taken to following me around the last few days of summer, and was an endless well of curiosity. Castor had told me much of the same thing from when he had her. Honestly, the whole camp loved her. She was one of the few bright spots in our lives recently.

Safe to say I was excited to see her. Her birthday was next week, and I had promised to take her on a trip to see some “adorable little fishies” as she had said.

Just as I reached for the door handle, a hand reached out to stop me. I turned around to see my father.

“Percy, wait. Please.” He all but begged.

I glared at him, looking back to the door. I could just leave now, and avoid him for the rest of what little was left in the day. But my conscience got the better of me, and I turned around to face him.

“What.” I said curtly. I would entertain whatever he had to say, because I was nice like that. Not because I actually cared or wanted to hear what he had to say.

He seemed to pick up on the fact that I didn’t want to listen to him, because he shifted on his feet uncomfortably before running a hand through his hair.

“I-I just-“

“Get on with it.” I snapped, my patience running thin.

He snapped his mouth shut, taking a deep breath before looking me in the face.

“Percy, I know I’m not your favorite person, I know that I’m not the father you want or deserve-”

I snorted at that. At least he was self aware, I could give him that. 

And no, he wasn’t the father I wanted or deserved. That was Paul, and he had filled the father role better than Poseidon ever could have.”

“But never doubt that I care about you. You're my son. Please don’t doubt that.” He said, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze before releasing me and taking a step back, looking at the ground.

I stared at him, shocked. That definitely had not been what I was expecting. I had been expecting to be scolded for how I have been acting, for how I have treated Zeus. Maybe even an excuse for their behavior. But I definitely wasn’t expecting him to tell me that I mattered to him. 

How could I matter to him? He was an immortal being. He’s had hundreds-if not thousands of kids. What would make me any different? I was just a blip in his immortal life.

Or maybe it wasn't me in particular. There have been many accomplished sons of Poseidon-Theseus and Bellerophon to name a few.  

So maybe that was it, he just cared a bit about all of his kids. I mean, he couldn’t like me less than Polyphemus- and he had screwed Odysseus over for ten years just because he hurt him. Polyphemus was someone I knew on good authority was one of the least favorite children too.

”He’s told me I’m his favorite.” The back of my mind whispered. 

The anger in me suddenly started draining. Maybe I was being a tad too harsh on him. There wasn’t much he could do with Zeus breathing down his neck. Yes, he had his shortcomings, yes, he had failed me multiple times. But he was a god. What else was I expecting? They were so far removed from mortal problems that he probably didn’t even realize.

My godly parent just told me what a younger version of me would have done anything to hear. I could at least be thankful. There was no point in doing to him what he did to me.

With that, I let a smile worm its way onto my face, the corner of my eyes crinkling. “Thanks, Dad. I won’t.”

Poseidon’s shoulder relaxed, tension bleeding out of his body. He rubbed the back of his head, ruffling his hair. He dropped his hand to his side, a smile finding its way onto his face.

“Let’s head to the dining pavilion. I’m starving.” I said.

My dad’s smile grew wider, “Please, I’m starving, I feel like I could eat four horses. How do you guys live like this? Do you normally get hungry this much?” He said, exasperatedly.

“I could go for a couple horses.” I replied.

I let out a chuckle at the sight of a mighty god suffering from the lowly mortal problem of being hungry.

“Annabeth thinks how hungry I get has something to do with my powers being more demanding than most. Like, Nico passes out, I eat a couple horses.” I commented.

“I did just blow up a building, I guess they would make sense.” He reasoned with a shrug.

We walked out of the infirmary right behind the Apollo cabin and out into the courtyard between the cabins. To our right, towards the forest, a bunch of campers were finishing up a volleyball game against some satyrs and heading towards the pavilion. A little further down, large plume of smoke rose from the Hephaestus cabin, and there were a couple urgent yells. A little ways away from the cabin, I could see the Stolls running in the opposite direction.  The Demeter cabin had grown vines all over the Aphrodite cabin, and Drew and Piper were arguing with Katie and another Demeter camper I didn’t recognize. Even farther I could see some broken canoes on the lake brought in, one of the Nike kids was being yelled at for something. 

The entire camp was a melting pot of absolute chaos. And I loved every second of it. There was a weird peace in seeing the such chaos around me. A reassurance that no matter what happened to us, we would keep being impulsive, chaotic teenagers.

“How do you manage to break a canoe clean in half in a lake?” My dad said from beside me.

“It takes talent, that's for sure.” I said, laughing.

“ what sort of maneuvering would you have to do to accomplish that?” He continued, genuinely confused.

Maybe they got it stuck on a rock and put too much weight in the middle? I don’t know.” I theorized.

“Is it even possible to be that bad at something?” My dad questioned.

“You know, I would have agreed with you once.” I said with a snort, “ but then I tried archery, and I managed to shoot an arrow in the direct opposite of the target.”

Dad turned to me with a look of disbelief, “really? I mean, I’m not good at archery, but I’m not that bad.”

“Is being bad at archery a genetic trait you passed to me or something?” I asked.

“Being bad at archery? Totally a genetic thing. You should never let me near a bow.” He said with a smirk, “Whatever you got going on with archery? I think that’s a skill in itself.”

I let out an offended sound, “I’m not that bad!” 

“The arrow you shot behind yourself begs to differ.” 

With a huff, I turned my head away, refusing to make eye contact with my bully. I heard a good natured chuckle from behind me, and I fought to keep a smile off of my face. 

I stepped onto the dining pavilion and headed towards my usual table for cabin 3.  I made eye contact with Annabeth from a few tables away, and she looked between me and my father with a big smile and gestured up to where Chiron normally sat. She offered me a thumbs up before turning to face Malcolm, who was sitting on her right.

I looked up at the table to see Zeus angrily talking to Mr. D and Chiron. Mr. D seemed to be getting progressively more amused, while Chiron looked like someone told him they entered him in a horse show. I bit back a snort, and tapped my Dad on the shoulder from where he was sitting to my left. He looked over when my hand made contact with his shoulder, his face asking the question for him.

“Look at Chiron and Mr. D’s table.” I said with a smile. 

His gaze drifted up towards the head table and to where Zeus was getting scolded by the centaur. They were getting progressively louder, and were starting to draw attention from some of the campers tables.

“I knew Chiron was my favorite brother for a reason.” Poseidon said with a snort.

I laughed at that and said, “I always forget that you're technically half brothers.” I said grinning as the nymphs came with platters of food, apparently deciding whatever Chiron was yelling at the king of the gods about would take awhile.

“Wait, doesn’t that make Chiron my uncle? Or half uncle? Is that even a real thing?” I asked.

My dad smiled, “yes he would be your uncle.” He said, shaking his head.

I scrunch my face up at the thought. That was kinda weird. I picked up a fork and aggressively stabbed the pork ribs on my plate.

Chiron turned away from his discussion with Zeus to pound a hoof into the floor, announcing that the meal could officially commence, and that announcements would be made after the meal today.

One by one, tables got up and headed to the brazier to give offerings. I could hear some murmurs of confusion at who the new guys were, and why one was getting yelled at by Chiron. 

“Do I just, sacrifice something to you anyways?” I asked, “ I feel like people will notice that you're not responding with your normal wind smell thingy.”

As I said they, a strong smell of pomegranates washed over the pavilion. I snapped my head up, my eyes searching. They quickly locked onto Nico, who was standing near the brazier. As he turned around, I flashed him a smile and sent him a quick wave. He reciprocated the wave half heartedly, before locking his gaze onto where Poseidon was sitting next to me.He cocked an eyebrow inquisitively. 

“I’ll tell you later.” I mouth to him.

He nodded and turned away from my table, starting towards the lonely table for cabin 13, before changing his course and heading over towards us.

“Forget what you're supposed to do, what am I supposed to do?” I heard my Dad mutter from beside me, stabbing his ribs with a fork.

I choked back a laugh before looking at him, “I don’t know, but you know your supposed to sacrifice some of your food first right?”

He scowled down at his plate, dropping the fork with a clang.

“And who’s going to smite me down for it if I don’t? Zeus is a bit busy getting bullied by a horse right now.” 

I shook my head and stood up, grabbing my plate and gesturing for my dad to follow. Right as the two of us stood up Nico slid into a spot across from us. I gave him a look to convey that I would explain shortly, and headed off toward the fire.

When it was my turn in line, I scraped the smallest bit of food I possibly could to the brazier and quietly whispered, “Poseidon.”

When I was done I turned to face said god with a lopsided smirk. He glared angrily at the fire as if it had offended him.

“You know, you could have just given me the food if you really want to give me an offering.” He said as I brushed past him.

I stopped and turned to stick my tongue out at him like the mature person I am and wait for him to sacrifice his food.

I watched him expertly debone one of his ribs and push the bone into the fire before whispering, “Hades, this is for blaming me for the broken statue, I know that was you.” And following it up with a string of very decidedly un-kind words.

A rotten smell washed over the entire pavilion, causing many people to wave a hand in front of their face and look inquisitively towards the brazier.

With a satisfied grin, Poseidon turned back toward our table and sauntered away. I followed close behind him with an ever growing grin.

When we arrived at the table, Nico was looking at the two of us questioningly.

“Who are you?” He said flatly, giving Poseidon an appraising look.

“Wow straight to the point.” I muttered.

Nico shot me a judgemental glare before turning his attention back to Poseidon, “Did the number two hoe have another secret kid or something?”

I let out a strangled choking sound, whipping my head around to look wide eyed at my father, who looked very offended at the moniker.

“Wow, that’s a little uncalled for, previously favorite nephew of mine.” He said indignantly.

Nico stared blankly at Poseidon before turning his unnerving stare to me and saying, “huh?”

I nodded idly, “ he’s got a point, it is uncalled for. Completely true, but uncalled for.”

Poseidon let out an offended noise from beside me, jutting out his bottom lip into a pout. I ignored it and blinked innocently at Nico.

He scowled and rephrased his question, “what do you mean nephew? I would guess that I am a little older than you think I am.

The former sea god stabbed his deboned rib with a fork, placing it in his mouth and chewing. He swallowed his food and responded, “I too, am a little older than you think I am, I believe.”

“Stop avoiding the question. My only uncles are gods, why did you call me your nephew?” Nico said angrily.

“Why would I answer the question when you're doing that yourself?” 

Nico glared at him grumpily, “unless you are Poseidon here to ruin everyone’s summer, I don’t think any question has been answered.”

The former god smiled all lackadaisical like, “At your service, here to ruin everyone’s summer!” He said, bending his torso slightly in a mock bow.

There were a couple beats of awkward silence before Nico blew up.

“You’re Poseidon?” Nico all but yelled. 

“I would prefer it if you would keep it down a bit, but yes. The blond guy getting bullied by the horse man is Zeus just in case you were wondering.” Poseidon affirmed.

Nico stared at the former god, eyes wide,”why are you here? What happened?”

At that moment Chiron had decided he had very much had enough of Zeus, and stamped his hoof once again, bringing the attention back to the front and cutting off the rest of Nico’s confused questioning. 

“May I please have all your attention for a couple minutes?” Chiron boomed over the chatter of the camp. Everyone fell silent at the command.

Nico looked wide eyed between me and my father, before turning his attention to the front.

“I want answers, just so you know.” He said.

“I think that you’ll get some in a few minutes if you're patient.” I responded, glancing up to the front of the pavilion just in time to see Zeus walk away from the table, an angry expression on his face. He looked at us with a glare,and came and sat down at the far end of the table, placing his chin on his hands and facing away from Chiron.

Chiron looked out across the pavilion as the final comments of campers' conversations were shared, and a silence fell over the crowd. He let a small smile grace his face before continuing.

“Thank you. Welcome to another year at camp everybody! It’s good to see you all alive and well, and I am looking forward to another summer spent with you all.

Before I let you finish eating and head off to evening activities, I would like to go over a couple notices and important announcements.

First of all, I would like to request that you all please refrain from placing explosives in other campers cabins and work spaces. It is unsafe and causes unnecessary destruction to property.”  Chiron said, his eyes sweeping across the Hermes table.

“With that out of the way, I would also like to welcome all of our new campers to Camp-Halfblood! I hope that you will enjoy your summer among your fellow demigods and stay safe from the current ongoing in the mortal world. We would like to request that you take special care to not leave camp borders this summer, as we have recently had demigods start to disappear. And with the rise of the mortal’s Supernatural Administration Bureau, we would  like to caution you to be very careful to not be noticed anytime you are not in camp borders.”

Murmured ripples across the assembled crowd at that. Every demigod was aware of what was going on with mortals right now. And we all were already tired of it. Tired of the feeling of being hunted down. We already were living like prey to monsters, but now we were living as prey to mortals as well.

“On a more cheerful note, we will be holding our first capture the flag game this Friday! The captains will be the Ares and Athena cabins as per custom. I have been asked by our head medic to please refrain from excessive use of powers, and to not set any trees on fire this time.”

Nico let out a huff of frustration from beside me. Turning away with a grumpy look on his face at that. I grinned, amused at his irritation. It was nice to see Nico beginning to fit in with camp more. He was less reclusive, and had started spending time with other campers and making more friends than just the me, Annabeth and the rest of the Seven. I had seen him and Will Solace hanging out a lot more recently, and was interested in what sparked that relationship to start. I wouldn’t peg them as two people who had a lot in common.

“With that, Thalia and a couple hunters will be arriving shortly, and will be staying in camp for a couple weeks, and I expect you all to act with respect, and to not curse any items of clothing while they are here.”

Another pointed look was directed in the way of the Hermes cabin, specifically at the Stoll brothers who seemed rather disappointed by the instruction.

I looked over to where Annabeth was sitting with her siblings, and shot her a smile. She matched my smile, before mouthing, “She’s on my team for capture the flag.”

I shook my head, indicating that I was not going to let that happen again. Last time Annabeth and Thalia had gotten to be on the same team, it had been an absolute nightmare to clean up the destruction afterwards. She was going to be on my team this time, so Annabeth would have to feel my pain.

I had made a deal with Clarisse last year that I would be on her team for the first capture the flag game if she broke into the Hermes cabin and stole Connor and Travis’ prank supplies so I could use them, and she had delivered. It was my turn to hold up my end of the deal, and win her a capture the flag game against Annabeth.

I couldn’t be more excited. 

“I have one more thing to announce before I release you for evening activities, and it is important, so please keep your questions to yourself until I finish.” He said, his gaze zeroing in on our table. 

Chiron swallowed nervously, his eyes flicking back and forth between Zeus and the rest of the Campers. After a couple seconds, he took a deep breath and began.

“A new prophecy has surfaced, one that I fear will affect our camp.”

A wave of outrage flooded the campers sitting at their tables. Some campers jumped to their feet, yelling out things in defiance, while others simply looked between each other, shocked.

“What?” Shouted Clarisse, rising to her feet. Shewhipping around to where Rachel was sitting, “When was this?”

Rachel looked at her confused, “I don’t know, I never haven’t had any prophecies recently, not even just random dreams.” She shifted her gaze up to Chiron to ask, “Where did you get this prophecy?”

“SILENCE!” Chiron’s voice boomed across the dining hall, his gaze turning to Rachel, “This was not a prophecy we received from you.”

“The where!” shouted a Nemesis camper.

“We received this prophecy directly from the fates, it was given to two gods.” He answered, his gaze tracking of My dad, before flicking over to Zeus. He quickly continued before anyone else could interrupt him.

“After the giant war, strings of mortals and demigods alike were being cut too early without the permission of the fates. In order to combat this, the Fates turned two gods mortal in order to fix this.”

Instantly, a cacophony of surprised yells were raised from the assembled people. I could feel my father shift to my side, and sink down lower onto the bench, wilting slightly under Nico’s incredulous gaze. 

Finally,  Mr. D stood up, and spoke, “For the gods sakes brats let the man speak! He’s trying to tell you! Kids these days, you all would have been smote on the spot back in Greece!” He said before plopping back down in his chair. He looked back up at the assembled crowd, “Don’t tempt me, please. I don’t have the willpower to resist.”

A silence finally settled over the camp at the threat. I scratched the back of my neck. I could feel a headache coming on, and I was ready for this day to be over already. 

“For now, the prophecy will remain confidential, as we are not yet sure of its details. But, we will be working to find the best way to resolve it quickly and quietly. This is not a matter for you to concern yourself with.

The two gods who will be remaining at camp to help solve this situation are Lord Zeus, and Lord Poseidon. I expect you to treat them with the same respect you would normally, and not get yourselves resigned to eternal divine punishment.” Chiron said, gesturing at my table where my Dad was trying to disappear into the bench and Zeus looked like he was contemplating taking his chances In New York on his own.

Chiron swept his gaze over the assembled crowd with a sigh. He raised a hand gesturing for us to continue with what we were doing before he had called us all to attention.

“The hunters will be arriving soon, that is all.” He said, turing tail and walking away from the pavilion and towards the big house, Mr. D followed after him, right after he sent a wave in his father’s direction.

Once they left, every eye in the camp was suddenly trained on our table, a speechless shock seemed to have enveloped the crowd. To be fair, it wasn’t everyday that your two most powerful gods got turned mortal and were forced to stay at a camp for teenagers. I could understand their bafflement.

Annabeth-bless her- stood up and clapped her hands together, gathering everyone’s attention on to her. 

“Alright everyone, that’s all for dinner tonight! Let’s head over to the campfire to start our evening activities!” She said, beginning to walk towards the fire pit.

Poseidon let out a sigh of relief from beside me, straightening up slightly. Zeus also looked incredibly relieved to hear that announcement.

WIll stood up from where he was standing, and began to follow Annabeth. When no one from his table moved, he turned around and said, “Come on guys, you heard her. Let's get ready for the sing-along. Austin, you need to go grab your saxophone!”

Suddenly, the Apollo table was filled with movement as they stood to follow their head counselor. The Athena cabin took that as their queue as well, standing up and following Annabeth towards the fire.

Nico glanced between us all one more time before saying, “I’m going to go to the fire, I assume you three will be heading back to your cabins tonight?”

I nodded my head, turning to look at my father., “It would probably be best for you two to lay low for a bit till the shock dies down.”

He nods his head vehemently, before rising to his feet and taking a couple steps towards the cabin. He stopped and turned around, waiting for me to get up and follow.

Zeus had already stood up, and without saying anything began the trek towards Cabin one. I was happy to let him go on his own, and overjoyed to finally have him out of my hair.

Nico stood up stretching slightly and turning away from us, heading towards the fire with the rest of camp.

“I’ll check on you guys tomorrow. Percy, are you still doing sword stuff in the arena tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m still planning on it.”

With a nod, Nico left.

I walked past my father, gesturing at him to follow me and heading towards cabin three. When we reached the door, I put my hand on the handle, pausing and turning to look at him.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, feeling surprisingly friendly and welcoming at the moment.

“Tired,” he replied, apparently falling off a building and sleeping the whole day really take it out of you.”

I let out a small chuckle before entering the cabin.

Everything in the cabin was exactly as I had left it. The back wall still glowed like abalone, creating a contrast with the rest of the bluish gray walls. A golden light fixture that looked like branches of coral was placed in the center of the ceiling, and let out warm light when the turned on, making the whole cabin look like it was covered in waves. The bunk beds had dark metal frames, but the ladders were curved and in the center of the bunk beds, making them look kinda futuristic looking if you asked me.  In the corner, next to the door to the bathroom, was the repaired version of the iris message fountain my father had given me. With its golden drachma sitting in the bottom of the pool. The undersea plants that Tyson had given me were still sitting in the window sills.

I walked over to one of the beds and flipped down the mattress, before stepping to the side. Poseidon walked over and sat down on it, sighing and running a hand through his hair. I walked over to a wardrobe where I kept some extra clothes, and began to dig though. I grabbed a big tee shirt and some pajama pants that my mom had gotten for me, but had grabbed a size to big, and threw them at my Dad. 

“Shower is in there,” I said, pointing at the bathroom, “And I think I have a spare toothbrush somewhere that I can get for you.” 

He nodded appreciatively and turned to the bathroom door.

“Love that you made the shower have a saltwater setting by the way!” I called out after him with a smile.

He let out an amused chuckle, “I didn’t design the cabin, the original campers all planned out the cabins and just asked the kids who the cabin was for what they wanted in it.” He said, “My son and daughter at the time requested that they put a salt water setting on the shower.”

“Huh, I never knew that.” I said, “I guess I kind of assumed that the gods designed them and just made the campers build them.” 

“No, we offered to, but they wanted to build them themselves so it was more personal to them.” He replied, a  soft smile on his face.

“What were my siblings' names?” I asked, a little shyly. Most campers knew about their famous sibling from ancient Greece, but we rarely heard about fellow modern demigods. I was kind of interested to learn more about them.”

A dark expression crossed my fathers face before he answered, “Chloe and Nicholas. Chloe died from a gunshot wound when a bank she was in got held up, and Nicholas passed from tuberculosis. They both died a week apart from each other in 1854. Nicholas was only 17.” He said grimly.

I didn’t really have a response to that,  I hadn’t really been expecting him to remember a ton about them, let alone tell me, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” 

“It’s fine. There’s no reason you can’t ask about your siblings. I’ve watched a lot of my children die, and I hate to say that it does get easier.” He said, staring at the ground almost guilty. 

I really didn’t have an answer for that. I never really considered how demigod children felt to the gods. Our life spans were just mere blots on their eternal lives. We were like a dog or a cat in that way. 

I swallowed a little uncomfortable, and gently placed my hand on his shoulder. We stood there in silence for a couple seconds, before he stood up, grabbing the clothes I had offered him and heading towards the bathroom.

“Is it okay if I go first?” He asked, hesitating slightly at the door.

“Uh, yeah. I was kinda expecting you too, sorry, I should have clarified.” I answered, glad to change the subject.

“It’s no problem, thanks.” He said, heading into the room. I heard the click of the door closing and the sound of the shower turning on.

I headed back towards where my bunk was and flopped down onto it, exhaustion over taking me. It really had been a long day. He had been right when he said jumping out of a building and sleeping most of the day took a lot out of you.

My eyes felt so heavy, and I was completely emotionally wrung out from today. I had already been through a roller coaster of emotions and it's only been two days. 

Before I even knew it, my eyes had drifted closed. I tried to stay awake, but compromised with my eyelids to keep the closed like this. I would wait till my Dad was out of the bathroom, then I would go brush my teeth and head to bed.

I never got that far though, because the second I turned my head I was fast asleep.

Chapter Text

One thing I quickly learned in my short time at camp was that I made for a strange hippie statue.

 The statue in my cabin unnerved me, it was so wrong in so many unique ways that I didn’t know what to do with it. It looked like something Apollo would have made when he was the godly equivalent of four. And that wasn’t a compliment. Sculpting was something that took him a while to figure out.

And it didn’t even look like me. My beard had never been that long, and the master bolt looked nothing like the pathetic zig zag hippie me was holding. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at my torso. How dare mortals assume I was so average.  You could tell instantly that whoever had sculpted this had never once looked at me. I felt bad for my children who had to gaze upon this horrible rendition of my splendor.

I also would like to have a conversation with whoever had come up with the design for the camp shirts. If I could think of a single design that would undermine the superiority of demigods to mortals, it would be the horrendous shade of traffic cone orange they were forced to wear. Where was the style? Where was the propriety? Nothing about these shirts made me think that these were children of incredibly powerful beings. Demigods used to be revered, to be feared. Oh how far they had fallen. And to think that they thought they deserved our attention with the meager feats and abilities? They got more than they deserve from us. Mortals were in desperate need of a reminder of their places.

Gods deserved their respect and fear. We were not beings to be trifled with. The constant disrespect we had been shown ever since that sea spawn had appeared was unacceptable, and needed to be corrected. It was my duty, even as a mortal, to show that we were superior to these weaklings.  Ares had made a mistake in playing with the Jackson boy on that beach, and it had made him think he could stand up to us, that he was on the same level as us. Perseus was the leader of the demigods, whether he wanted to admit it or not, and his attitude was starting to affect the rest of our children.

Unfortunately, I had to be stuck with Poseidon in this endeavor. Everything I managed to accomplish, any discipline I managed to remind the demigods of having, any respect, was instantly undermined by my bumbling, blustering, buffoon of a brother. Athena’s child had gotten way too comfortable around Poseidon and his son. The big three and their children should be held to the highest regard, and not just any demigod should be able to talk to either of them the way she did. Even if it was two of my least favorite people in this branch of hell. 

At least, I wasn’t stuck with any demigods while I was here. If anything good had come out of my oath on the Styx, it was the lack of kids currently in this cabin.I threw on one of the camp tee shirts with a disgusted huff, and grabbed a sweatshirt I had been given from the camp store by Chiron. It was almost as bad as the tee shirts, except this one was a bright, sickly green sweat shirt that said property of the Delphi Strawberry service in a large and excessively curly font. To make it even worse, the letters were an awful shade of highlighter yellow.

I stepped outside the cabin and into the courtyard of the camp.  There was a cool gale wind blowing from the ocean and washing over the camp. There had been a series of storms over the course of the last couple days, and it had just died down. But it looked like there was another storm mustering up. 

I shivered slightly, cursing the fates for my misery while my  gaze across the camp grounds. Mortal needs were truly one of the most inconvenient and annoying things to ever happen to me. Being cold from a slight wind, needing to eat three times a day and get a certain amount of sleep? It was no wonder mortals never accomplished anything in their puny life spans with how much time they wasted being unconscious lumps. It was exhausting, and I was only on my third day of it. And the horrible burning sensation after I do anything active? Awful, truly horrendous.

Apollo had barely pulled his chariot into the sky behind the bleak and gray clouds, but the campers were already up and annoying. Everywhere I looked there were people in groups preforming some meaningless activity or another.  There were groups of kids standing around a long table near the dining pavilion, large clouds of pink smoke rising from what ever they were doing, some other cabin were…

I don’t know what they were doing, it appeared to be glass blowing, but they had bottles of soap and weird plastic lassos they were blowing through, and there was a distinct lack of glass blowing materials.

I shook my head, turning away from the inane activities, and instead focused on the campers who were at the arena and archery range. At least they were actually doing something practical. There was a small crowd of younger campers standing next to a group of four or five much stronger looking campers, who I assumed must be offspring of Ares. They seemed to be intently looking at something happening in the arena, probably two fighters.

I decided to head over to the arena, deciding that I didn’t want to participate in the glass blowing project over where breakfast was. I could go hungry till lunch if it meant avoiding them.

With my mind made, I turned and began my trek towards the arena. I would probably just practice on some of the dummies to try to get used to the less than satisfactory weapons. Unless Poseidon showed up, then I would gladly take the nicely offered up opportunity to humiliate him. 

My musing was rudely interrupted when I was run into by some short brat.

“Woah, watch it there buddy. Do you normally run into things that don’t move?” Snarked the emo looking girl.

Do you normally leave before happy hour-”

My completely-original-and-most-definitely-not stolen-from-Poseidon retort died on my tongue as I recognized the girl in front of me.

Oh.

Those probably weren’t the best first words to say to my daughter after months of not once laying eyes or even really thinking of her.

“Thalia.” I swallowed uncomfortably, shoving my hands into the pocket of the awful sweatshirt. My skin prickled uncomfortably, and I suddenly felt rather hot despite the chilling wind blowing through.

She scrunched her face at me, a look of slight distaste on her face, “am I supposed to know you?”

I took a deep breath to calm my anger. She had no reason to recognize me. I was surprised Dionysus had put it together so fast, there was no reason she would figure it out. 

“Yes, you kn-”

Did you steal Jason’s face and grow his hair out or something?” She said, her eyes narrowing in confusion.

I snapped my mouth shut and pressed my lips together into a thin line. She was lucky she was my daughter, I would not tolerate this level of insolence from anyone else.

Of my two mortal children, Jason was far and away my favorite. He was a respectful and powerful kid who brought glory to Rome and Jupiter. It was a shame I had been made to give him over to Hera, he was an exquisite hero, unlike his sister. She had rejected the great prophecy, dumping it onto Perseus and running away to hunt. She had shied away from her chance to prove herself as a true daughter of the sky, and had embarrassed me. Jason had faced down Krios and destroyed Kronos’ throne on mount Othrys. and been lifted on the shields of the legion and made a praetor. My eldest daughter could take note of how he acted, Jason had lived up to his heritage, while Thalia had most definitely not.

“No, I am not Jason-”

“Then who are you? You said we’ve met?” She interrupted.

I had really had it with the constant interruptions that demigods made. It was like talking to a hundred Poseidons all at once. No respect, no attention span, no patience. Just constant onslaught on your sensibilities. 

Before I could finally get around to answering her question about my identity that she kept putting off, I was once again interrupted.

“Thalia!” A shout sounded over the open field.

Her attention snapped away from me as quickly as I had gained it, her eyes searching for the source of the disturbance, her eyes lighting up when she locked eyes with the Athena brat.

“Annie!” She exclaimed, quickly turning away from me to meet her friend with an embrace, “It’s been so long! How have you been?”

Annabeth withdrew from the embrace, a smile gracing her features, “Pretty good all things considered.” She answered, her gaze drifting up to where I stood uncomfortably.

“Ah, I see you’ve met one of the problems.” She said, her tone giving away her unhappiness at my presence. 

It was a good thing it was mutual, because I have smote mortals for lesser slights.

Thalia turned back towards me, breaking off the happy embrace with her friend, a strand of her short, spiky black hair drifted over the diadem like headpiece she was wearing in honor of her patron and my daughter, Artemis.

“One of? Who is this problem then?” She asked her eyes once again, gaining a hostile edge to them as she jutted a thumb over her shoulder to me.

I decidedly did not like that. 

Annabeth’s gaze flicked between me and Thalia before shifting her weight from leg to leg, evidently uncertain on how to precede. I decided that I was going to let her struggle through the explanation, I had most definitely had enough of explaining my curse to others.

“Uh, well, its kind of a long story, but- um…” 

She glanced up at me pleadingly, a hopeful look in her eyes. I raised an eyebrow, 

“Don’t tell me Zeus had another kid!” Thalia exclaimed, her gaze shooting to me nervously.

“No!” She exclaimed, waving her hands to try to placate Thalia, “Well, I guess you could see it that way but not really-”

“Just tell her already.” I grumbled, my patience reaching a breaking point.

She narrowed her eyes at me and took a breath, “Fine. Thalia, meet Zeus.”

…

….

…….

“What?” 

“That’s Zeus.” Annabeth restated.

Thalia’s eyes widened as she whipped her head around to stare at me in shock. I had gotten a lot of that recently. I was starting to get used to it.

“Father?” She asked hesitantly.

“Mmm” I replied, looking anywhere but her face.

“Why are you- why-” She stuttered out, confusion written all over her face.

“I have been turned mortal.” I explained tightly, my teeth gritted together slightly as I tried to hold back my tongue.

“Why?”

“Because the fates-”

“Wait! Beth, you said that it was one of the problems. What’s the other one?” she said, once again cutting me off, her hand reaching down to her belt where a curved hunting knife rested. 

IIf I didn’t stop getting interrupted I might let her try to stab the other problem. That would be decidedly enjoyable. Poseidon didn’t take too well to getting stabbed, most who tried(Or succeed, he seems to get strange injuries a lot.) ended up in a pile with most of their bones broken and a couple pints of blood missing from where it was supposed to be. He was an angry little fish boy like that.

“I wouldn’t go around stabbing the problems if I were you Thals, they kind of stab back.” Annabeth said, her hands raised in a calming gesture, “Plus, the other one is almost likeable at times.”

“Are we thinking of the same person?” I questioned. Poseidon was most definitely the more unlikeable of the two of us. At least I knew when to keep my mouth shut and didn’t blurt out the first thing that came to mind.

They both ignored me and continued their conversion. 

I was already done with today. Some Poseidon beating would be in good order later today to relieve my anger in a way that doesn’t sick an angry horse on me.

“Fine, no stabbing. Who is the other problem? I’m assuming it's another god?” She questioned, side-eying me from where she was standing.

“Yep, it’s Percy 2.0.” She answered. 

“Poseidon?” she exclaimed, “I guess that explains the weather recently…” She said, trailing off into thought.

“I’m kinda surprised you said you don’t mind him, doesn’t he really not like you mother?” Thalia asked.

Annabeth shrugged in response, “he hasn’t tried to kill me yet. Actually, I think I’ve been the much more hostile one of the two of us. I did threaten to send him to the underworld before I realized who he was.” She said sheepishly.

I decided that my social responsibilities had been fulfilled at that moment, and turned away from the two girls and continued towards the fighting arena. Hopefully my brother would be there, he would be better company then a bunch of young mortals.

Surprisingly, I had found myself actively seeking out my older brother during the couple days we had been here. He was a constant annoyance and bother to everything I did, but at least he didn’t act like I was made of pit scorpion venom. He just went on with his life and insulted me like normal, before doing something new and creative to piss me off and disappearing. But at least he understood the challenges and hardships I was experiencing to a degree.

As I approached the arena, I could see that the onlookers were not just standing by and talking, but watching an intense match between a strong looking girl and Perseus.

The girl was using a short spear, while Perseus was using his usual short bladed xiphos, and it seemed like they were just starting their fight since they were slowly circling each other, weapons held at a defensive position.

Perseus held his sword in a position reminiscent of a plow guard, obviously planning to attack first as to not let the girl reap the many benefits of a spear over a sword. The girl circled opposite of him, spear held at a mid position, covering any obvious weaknesses and primed to attack, a balanced position.

Suddenly, Perseus shot forward, moving his sword up into a thrust at her stomach. She stepped to the side, using the staff of her spear to push the sword further away from her, and taking the given opening to attack. 

She quickly withdrew her spear from the parry, and brought it forward in a thrust at Perseus’ side. He pivoted on his back foot, spinning toward the oncoming attack and brining his sword up to flick the spear tip upward, before ducking slightly under it and lunging forward, landing a blow with his off hand into her stomach. 

The girl staggered back a few steps, bringing her spear point down to defend against his next attack, which came quickly in the form of an overhead back handed slash. Using the advantage of maneuverability that a short spear gave her over a long spear, she brought the staff of the spear up to block, twisting the spear and sending the sword point down into the dirt, before following through on her twisting motion to bring it up in an upward slash.

Perseus darted backwards, narrowly avoiding a the well placed slash. The girl pressed her advantage, thrusting forward in a longer ranged stab, fully extending her leading arm and using the space to get in a bit closer before following it up with a shorter ranged stab, driving Perseus back further towards the arena boundary.  He brought his sword up to desperately defend against the onslaught of thrusts and slashes, trying to regain his footing before he was forced out of the arena line.

I heard a sigh of disappointment from beside me, and I turned to see Poseidon leaning against a weapon rack, looking on disappointedly at the fight. I turned to face him, a questioning eyebrow raised. He looked over to me, then back at the fight and finally over to me again.

“Should have stayed in closer when he got the punch in, he’s letting her control the pacing and distance of the fight. He’s letting her fight with her weapons capabilities instead of trying to force her to fight on his terms.” He said analytically, eyes narrowing at the fight where Perseus had narrowly dodged under another thrust and had countered with a swipe to the girl’s legs to force her back some.

I nodded idly in agreement with my brother’s assessment. He was ever the weapon snob. Not as bad as Ares by any means, but he tended to be a little quick to judge people in fights. He tended to be a bit temperamental and hasty in general, but I digress.

He nodded his head down as he watched Percy make another “grievous” mistake(he dodged a thrust instead of parrying it). I let out a sigh, before settling in next to him to spectate the fight. I could feel his irritation at the whole situation growing more and more every second, and I found myself hoping Perseus would clean up his act before Poseidon got unreasonably angry at him for not being a perfect combatant.

Lucky for Perseus and his health, he seemed to hear my silent musings, because he finally did pick  up the intensity and start making the right decisions.

He brought his blade under one of his opponent’s thrust, pushing it upwards and sliding under the spear to get in close. He drew back his sword and thrust it forward, point stopping just short of the girl’s throat.

She had dropped her spear in response to the counter, not willing to let herself be encumbered by the weapon while her attacker was so close, but it didn’t matter now. The fight was over.

The slowly raised her hands in a yielding gesture, and dour look on her face at her defeat.

“Damn it Jackson, I had you on your back heel for most of that fight!” She said angrily. 

The boy just let out a tired grin in response, lowering his blade and placing the cap back on it before turning to face the assembled crowd.

“And that, my students, is how you deal with an opponent with a longer weapon. You get in close!” he said with a slight flourish and a bow, a large, goofy grin spreading across his face.

There was an excited murmur from the younger crowd of campers, while the older ones who I had pegged as Ares kids grumbled unhappily under their breath. Much like Poseidon was doing now.

A slow clap came from the back of the crowd and was quickly joined by another, equally sarcastic but much quicker one.

“Yeah Percy! Teach her how to stab people properly!” Yelled my oldest demigod child.

Perseus’ eyes searched over the crowd, before finally landing on where Thalia and Annabeth were standing. His expression brightened, and he quickly started wading his way through the crowd to meet them.

“Thalia! You made it!” He said cheerfully. 

I tuned them out as I heard another exchange of greetings begin, turning to my brother, “you up for a spar later?” I asked, feeling surprisingly excited at the prospect of doing something somewhat productive.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, sure that would be fun. Preferably when there is a bit less of a crowd though.” He answered idly, looking down at his nails.

I nodded slightly and turned away, staring at the floor quietly.

A couple minutes passed with barely a word between us when our silence was interrupted by the return of the three demigods.

“And there’s Poseidon.” Annabeth said, sounding as though she were giving a tour of a museum and not introducing two people.

“I’m Thalia, though I assume you already know that- but I don’t think we’ve ever actually talked.” she said, thrusting out her hand for a handshake.

I furrowed my brow together at the much more friendly greeting to Poseidon than what I had received. You think that she would at least respect her father a bit, but nope. The uncle that she’s never met gets the nicer greeting. 

Demigods.

“I do in fact know who you are,” Poseidon said conversationally, looking up from the floor and shaking her hand pleasantly, “And no, I don’t think we have.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for not ever trying to kill me. Easily puts you at the favorite uncle spot.” she said, releasing his hand from her grip before sending him a wry grin.

“You’re welcome. I’m glad to be your favorite, I know it’s a high bar to meet.” He said with an amused smirk on his face.

“Can’t relate, both of my uncle’s have tried to kill me.” Perseus said dryly. 

“Don’t tempt me.” I responded flatly. 

I was promptly met with a smack to the back of the head at that comment, lurching my head forward and causing my neck to twinge.

I reached a hand up to rub my neck as I glared at Poseidon, before kicking him in the shin like the mature person I am.

Ignoring my retaliation, Poseidon’s grin grew on his face as he observed the three demigods standing in front of us, “Ignore him, he likes to pretend that he’s clever.”

Thalia let out a snort at that, “That;’s true. He was in the middle of telling me I looked like I left before happy hour when we met.”

I felt part of my soul leave my body as she said that. I pressed my lips together and glanced anxiously out of the corner of my eye towards my brother--his eyebrows had retreated into his hairline and the comment.

“Did he now? I wonder where you got that from now dear brother. Because I recall having said something rather similar to someone a few years back.” He looked at me with false skepticism, his eyebrows raised expectantly.

I swallowed and turned away from him, choosing to stare at the suddenly very interesting dirt on the ground.

I heard a nonchalant hum from Poseidon, “That’s what I thought, must just be a coincidence. Because otherwise it would not only mean you listen to what I say, but that- dare I say it- you think I’m funny?”

A couple of snickers sounded from the group of three teenagers as I turned to face my brother. I knew I wasn’t going to come up with any scathing retort to pacify him and make him shut up. So I went with the next best thing, embarrassment.

“Yep, you’re a whole comedy routine. Remember when I made our father vomit you out, and your first thing you did after asking him how his indigestion was treating him was to  instantly trip and fall into a pot of boiling acid that left you unable to move for two weeks?”

The grin instantly fell from Poseidon’s face, and I felt a malicious satisfaction at the sight. My plan had worked better than I hoped, this was great. How had I not tried this earlier?

“How did you manage that?” Perseus managed to ask between snickers, “aren’t gods supposed to be athletic or something? Embodiments of physical perfection?”

“You try walking for the first time in your life after being stuck in someone’s stomach for fifty years.” He grumbled, turning away from the three of them.

I could see his brain working behind his eyes as he tried to draw up some equally embarrassing stories about me. Not that it would work though.

“Do you really want to start this? Which one of us has more material?” I asked innocently.

He pressed his lips into a thin line and crossed his arms with a huff. Turing away and ignoring me.

At that time, a horn blew(which I knew to be a conch shell from way too much time around Poseidon.) signaling that it was time for the midday meal. I felt rather hungry seeing as I had skipped breakfast to avoid the bubble people. In the distance I saw groups of campers trickle towards the dining pavilion from wherever they had been before.

I turned to Poseidon with a slight smirk, “I can stab you after we eat.” I said, turning away from him and beginning the walk towards the pavilion.

I heard some indignant grumbles about how the only one getting stabbed was me in my sleep, but I chose to ignore it in favor of getting food. Maybe if we were lucky, Chiron would give us more information on the prophecy so we could get going on a quest to solve whatever world ending problem the mortals needed saving from. Or better yet, news that the fates had realized how hasty and irrational their decision was, and that they were going to turn me back and just make Poseidon fix the problem. That would be nice.

Chapter Text

The sharp clang of blades hitting rang out from across the field. A gentle dance of steel between two combatants. Combat was truly an art form, and one people had lost appreciation for long ago.

The slight subtlety in the twist of a blade, directing your opponent like a matador would a bull. The harsh downward stroke of a blow to cause an opponent to stumble, the calculated parrys to fend off an onslaught. You could never get to know someone the way you could with a weapon in hand. All beings truly showed themselves when they were locked in combat. There were no secrets, no courtesies, just raw emotion and desire.

That was something I could understand, something I could perform. 

But the complex twists and turns of humans? The nuances of emotions? Those were never something I understood.  Mortals were truly confusing creatures.

And even more confusing? Poseidon. My brother had to be the most confusing puzzle I’d ever seen. He was a hot headed, impulsive fool who always had something snarky to say. He didn’t take no for an answer and was fiercely protective over those he cared about. Those were all things I had come to expect. His mood might switch faster than Hera’s did, but you learned to flow with it after centuries of putting up with his every musing and whim.

But one aspect of him I would never be able to understand was that even though I secretly found him amusing, even with all of his abilities-and dare I say talents- and all his perfections as a god, he was so completely unable to not undermine everything remotely likeable about himself with his absolute, befuddling, bamboozling idiocy.

It truly was a talent. He was the most frustrating and annoying person I know.

Those were my thoughts as I watched Poseidon beat Percy in a sword fight for the umpteenth time in the day.

I let a small smirk of satisfaction cross my face at that, it was good for the brat to be reminded that Ares had been going less than easy on him.

Perseus’ sword clattered to the ground, bringing up a small cloud of dust with its impact. He panted tiredly, arm still poised in position for his attack, his hair plastered to his forehead and his face flushed with exertion from the repeated sparring matches.

In juxtaposition, Poseidon, stood in a relaxed position, the point of his sword pointed all lackadaisical at his opponents throat, his breathing even. He dropped the point of his sword into the dirt, and let a slightly cocky grin spread onto his face at his son’s obvious frustration.

There was nothing more infuriating than watching someone with unwavering confidence and arrogance succeed in the thing they were so confident in. 

He tutted quietly, shaking his head slowly, “you almost got me with the hilt move, didn’t see that one coming.” He said, seeing the look of frustration on Peseus’ face.

He threw his head back to glare at his father, his bottom lip jutting out in an annoyed scowl at the comment, “You ducked and I missed you by a foot!” He said indignantly.

“Yes, but I didn’t expect it! And that’s what matters.” Poseidon replied in an effort to placate him, his smile quickly falling from his face as he watched his son’s expression switch to one of annoyance and anger.

The boy’s scowl grew as he replied dejectedly, “Doesn't matter if you figured it out in enough time to dodge.”

Poseidon placed a falsely conforming hand on his shoulder, pressing his lips into a line to attempt to keep an even facade. But I could see him trying to hold back a slight smirk at his repeated victories. The egotistical bastard. He was the sort of guy who would be just as happy to beat a toddler as a professional in something. 

He might be a tad over competitive. Just a little.

“I’m starting to doubt if I’m even good at sword fighting. Maybe everyone else is hurt really bad.” Percy said grumpily.

“No, you are really good for a mortal!” He said quickly, obviously trying to keep his son from getting mad at him.

Perseus narrowed his eyes indignantly at the comment, his upper lip curling in a slight scow at the attempted compliment, “I don’t think that came out how you wanted it to.” 

Poseidon swallowed uncomfortably, flicking his gaze to the side to look at me pleadingly. When I offered no response, he turned his head towards Perseus, his hand going to the back of his head to ruffle his hair, displaying his discomfort.

“Uh, I mean- I have like a couple thousand more years of experience than you, wouldn’t it be weird if-”

He cut himself off, saving himself from picking up the jackhammer and digging his hole even deeper than he already had.

Perseus let out a scoff, bending down to pick up Anaklusmos from where it laid, “maybe I’ll just stab you in your sleep, then we can find out how much experience you have with that.”

Poseidon let out a sound of hurt, raising his hand to his heart in mock offense, “how dare you try to stab me in my sleep! At least do me the courtesy of stabbing me in the morning after breakfast!” 

“Is the sleep part of the stabbing attempt necessary?” I said, striding over to the weapon rack, randomly selecting a sword from the collection. 

I gave it a gentle toss in my hand, testing the weight and once again being met with dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, I brought the sword up in an extravagant flourish, brandishing the weapon and pointing its tip at Poseidon in askance.

He let out a scoff, flicking his blade up to knock it lightly against mine, a slight grin spreading across his face at my proposition. 

Perseus looked at us inquisitively, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you two actually fight, you managed to get interrupted by something every time.” He said with a slight laugh.

I held my wrist firm against the half hearted deflection, resting the blade lazily on his shoulder before asking, “No powers? Just swords?” 

All he had time to get out was another one of his cocky smirks that I longed to beat off his face, and would have taken great pleasure in doing so if not for the streaking ball of terror that barreled into me at that moment, knocking me to the side and making me drop the sword.

“Leave Percy alone you meanie!” 

I fell to the floor, not expecting the sudden impact of a midget on my side. I let out a slight grunt as the floor connected with my shoulder. 

The small, bony legs of a young girl dug into my sides as she straightened on my prone body and rained puny blows down on my chest with her tiny, pudgy, and useless fists.

“Don’t! Hurt! Percy!” She shouted out, her eyes squeezed shut as she continued her onslaught. Just behind her, I could hear feeble pleas for the demon spawn to halt her attacks, which she chose to ignore.

 Just as my patience with the girl was reaching its limit, hands reached down and gently pried the girl off my chest.

“Ava!” Perseus called, pulling the girl away from me and into his chest, “Ava! Calm down! I’m fine, you got him!” 

The girl stopped her attacks, slowly her body and cautiously cracking open an eye to peer down  at where I now sat. She turned her head down to face Perseus, a slight frown crossing her features as she studied him.

“You're not Percy silly!” She said, a slight giggle coming from her mouth, “Percy wears the wet hoodie!” She said, pointing towards wear Poseidon was standing, wearing one of Perseus’ AHS swimming hoodies.

He looked down at his sweatshirt, an inquisitive expression on his face. He raised his head up, pointing to himself in confusion, “me?” 

The little girl giggled again, wiggling in the arms of the real Perseus, “Percy so silly!” She said, finally wiggling enough to get Perseus to put her down.

She ran over to Poseidon, completely unaware of the completely baffled real Perseus standing behind her.  When she reached Poseidon, she stretched her hand out, her tiny fist closing around the fabric of the jeans Poseidon was wearing and tugging, her other arm stretched upwards to ask to be picked up.

Uncertainly, Poseidon reached down and gingerly lifted up the little girl, who instantly buried her head in the nook of his shoulder, her small arms wrapping around the back of his neck.

Poseidon shifted his hold on her slightly, his whole body tense with an air of uncomfortableness radiating from him. He looked up to his son, his eyes pleading for help.

“Uh- I’m not- im not Percy.” He stammered out awkwardly, looking down at the little girl buried in his shoulder and swallowing uncomfortably.

The girl titled her head back in confusion to get a better look at Poseidon, her eyebrows pinched together and a small frown on her face as she scrutinized the person holding her.

“But you look like Percwy.” She said, stumbling slightly over the end of his name.

“I can’t believe you forgot what I looked like Ava!” Perseus said, a humorous chuckle passing his lips, having recovered from his offense of being mistaken for his father for the umpteenth time this week.

The girl turned her head around to look at the new voice, and her eyes widened in shock. 

“But you not wearing Percy coat.” She asked, her face scrunched up in confusion.

“No, not today.” He said with a chuckle. 

Ava began to wiggle once again in Poseidon's hold, all trepidation suddenly forgotten at the sight of the real Perseus. 

“Percy!” She exclaimed happily, making grabby hands at him, a smile stretched between her cheeks. 

Poseidon passed her over to his son, a small smile on his face at the girl’s babbles. And brought his hand up to rub his neck.

“Who is other Percy?” Ava asked once she was seated comfortably in the real Perseus’ arms, a small frown once again adorning her face.

“That’s Poseidon.” Percy said, glancing at his father with a small smile.

“Po-” she tried, her face scrunching up in concentration, “Po-i-dun?” 

Perseus snickered quietly, a hand coming up to brush a lock of hair out of the little rat’s face, “close enough.”

“That’s a silly name!” She said with a giggle, the corners of her eyes crinkling with mirth, “you look like a Perry! Because you’re blue wike the platypuths! And you wook wike Percy!”

“Platypus aren’t blue.” I said idly as I rose to my feet, deciding my time on the floor needed to come to an end, and brushing the dirt off of my one pair of acceptable pants.

She whipped her head around to face me, a scowl on her face and tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. 

“Yes they are meanie!” She exclaimed, one small, pudgy finger crooked accusingly in my direction, “Perry is blue! And he’s a platy!” 

Perseus cooed to her quietly and shot me a glare before returning his gaze to the girl and gently turning the girls face to him so he could comfort her and her falsehoods.

“Yeah meanie, Perry is blue. Get your facts straight before you say something so wrong!” Perseus said, side eying me from where his head was turned to give his attention to the brat.

I could feel my head begin to spin in a way I was growing  uncomfortably familiar with. I had identified this emotion as confusion, and had deigned it as one of the more annoying ones that humans had to experience. My face would get hot, and all of my thoughts would become but a scramble of trying to rationalize the piece of information I was just told. Who was this Perry? And why was he spreading such lies about platypus? Why was Poseidon not saying anything? This seemed like something he would care an unproportional amount about.

I looked to Poseidon in confusion, seeking clarity in him, but he seemed just as confounded by the situation as I was. 

That probably was why he hadn’t said anything.

I heard a wet sniff coming from Ava, streaky tears falling down her face. 

Were all small children this needlessly dramatic? I was suddenly incredibly grateful that gods skipped the sniveling whiny meat potato phase and went right into juvenile delinquency. I could deal with livestock theft, but this was exhausting. 

I shuddered at the thought of having to deal with Apollo like this. Mortal kids were bad enough. Kids that would go nuclear when you didn’t give them enough attention sounded awful. 

Not that Apollo didn’t do that anyways, but you get the point.

Or Ares. That would have been awful. Someone would have gotten stabbed in their sleep if that happened. Or, well, more than they have been. 

Oh and don’t even get me started on Hermes, everyone’s pets would have been instruments of some sort.

Thankfully, Perseus’ voice shook me out of my spiraling thoughts and saved me from the horrible image of chaos and destruction my mind was kindly creating for me. 

“Hey Aves, why don’t I take you and we can see some of the cool fishies before your birthday? Wouldn’t that be fun? Then you won’t have to be around meanie over there anymore.” Perseus said, jerking his head in my direction as he gently bounced the girl on his hip.

The girl instantly brightened at his words. She reached a hand up to scrub her eyes free of any tears and looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

“Really?” She asked excitedly.

“Yep!.” Perseus hummed in agreement, “let’s just go tell your Dad where you’ll be and we can go!”

Percy set the girl down and began to walk away with her hand in his as she happily skipped along babbling.

Pollu taught me how to say Papa in gweek! He said papa would really like it if I called him Pater.” She explained happily.

Her pronunciation was awful. Weren’t demigods supposed to be naturally good at Greek? She could even say the word Greek!

Evidently, standards had been slipping in this camp.

“Pollux did?” Perseus questioned, a small smile on his face at the girl’s excited retelling.

The girl must be one of Dionysos’. Though I had no idea how he got a woman in his current state. I thought I recognized the name Pollux as the son that didn’t die during the raid on Camp-Halfblood to some silly mistake, so evidently he was the stronger one. Maybe he could teach this useless girl something about not inviting the wrath of gods with misinformation about platypuses.

Suddenly the girl stopped, turning around with a solemn expression now on her face. Perseus halted in his movements with her, turning back to look at Poseidon with a confused expression.

“Is something wrong Ava?” Perseus questioned, his gaze darting around the training pit.

The girl frowned, her pathetic expression almost looking sad, her bottom lip wobbling a bit. 

“We can’t leave Perry with meanie! He was going to stwab and him!” She exclaimed.

My eyes widened, in surprise. How did this little idiot not know what a spar looked like? 

It’s not like I had been planning to actually stab him or anything.

I needed to talk to Chiron about this, it was unacceptable that a demigod would not know what a spar was. Had she never practiced with a blade? How was she supposed to protect herself? Or bring honor to the gods?

Perseus choked back a laugh at the reaction as he doubled over slightly, a wheezing laugh finding its ways out of him.

Perseus reached down and grabbed Ava’s hand, clasping it in his own. His laughter had died down a bit to just small bouts of chuckles. 

“He can come if he wants to.” 

“He wants to!” Ava said excitedly, “you can show him all the cool fishies in the water!” 

“Poseidon rubbed the back of his head, a smile spreading onto his face at the girl's excitement at the new and exciting proposition of him seeing the many fishies that he had never seen before.

“Why not? Don’t have anything better to do.” He said, “what sort of exciting fishies are we going to see?”

He most definitely did have something better to do. I needed to “not stab him” or I was going to go insane. 

The girls widened, a smile spreading on her face, “Percy knows the coolest fishies! It’s because his papa is wike Twiton in Ariel!”

Poseidon's eyebrows shot upwards as he blinked a couple times.

“Like Triton in the little Mermaid?” 

She nodded emphatically, “that’s what I said!”

“Why is it always Triton? I don’t look like Triton!” he muttered saltily

I raised my eyebrows at that, “hate to break it to you…” 

I was quickly met with a glare and a subtle middle finger as he walked away, now engrossed in his conversation with Perseus and the crazy child.

Yep, that’s what I get for trying to be a good sibling. 

Siblings, am I right?

An arrow whizzed past my head and thunked into the trunk of a tree behind me. 

I quickly dropped into a crouch behind the tree I was sheltering behind,  my hand resting on where my sword was sheathed. I could hear the sound of a couple other people shifting just out of view behind the thicket we were sheltering behind. I could hear the patter of feet on the stones leading up to the river boundary and the quiet murmurs of the party discussing their next course of action.

After a couple seconds of deliberation, the sound of a small group of people sloshing through the river cut through the steadily building silence.

 Good, the plan was working.

The Athena cabin had come up with the idea of letting the raiding party for the other team cross the river and get in sight of the flag, even going as far to engage with the defending squad before a small group consisting of Thalia, Annabeth and I snuck through the forest while their forces were split.

I doubted they saw me, but this was a rather obvious place for someone on defense to be waiting. It was probably just a cautionary shot to try to flush someone out. Not that it worked.

I glanced to my right, my eyes searching for where Thalia was sheltering in a thicket just out of view from the enemy’s crossing point at the river. Our eyes met through the branches and she held up four fingers. I nodded idly, trying to find a way to discreetly peer around my cover to see if I recognized anyone.

It was smart to assume that there was either a child of Apollo or one of the hunters in the group judging by the arrow shot our way. Normally the fletching on the arrow would give it away, but apparently there were special arrows given to archers for the sake of not maiming anyone too badly while participating in capture the flag.

A little counter productive if you asked me. Wasn’t this supposed to teach the demigods how to fight? Dealing with injuries was definitely a part of that, if you couldn’t deal with an arrow severing your leg tendons in training, how were you supposed to when it counted? It was a valuable skill to be able to brush that off.

I doubted Poseidon or Perseus were in the group, they were too loud walking across the water for it to be either of them. Additionally, Poseidon hopefully would have found us by now, we weren't exactly in great hiding spots. Though he wasn’t the most observant, so it was a bit of a toss up.

There probably weren't any children of Demeter either, they would have also noticed three people sitting where there should be bushes, because tree huggers and stuff like that.

I carefully leaned around the trunk of the tree, keeping my face low to the ground and still obscured by the underbrush. All I could really do was hope and pray that they didn’t look downwards seeing as I now once again looked — as Poseidon liked to put it- like a “cow’s wet dream”, because of my current hair color.

His words, not mine. There was probably some underlying joke about something to do with Hera, but I choose not to think too deeply about it.  I chose not to think about things Poseidon says too much in general. There’s always some incredibly personal insult hidden among his much less personal insults. I had experienced that enough to last all of eternity. 

Let's just say there is a reason I’m not blonde anymore, and it’s not because I felt like changing it up. I actually quite like my blonde hair in fact.

I peeked through the underbrush of the shrubbery and other plants coating the floor of the forest. There were definitely four people, I could confirm that much, two guys and two girls. One of the girls was rather large, so I assumed she was a child of Ares, probably the one that had been sparring with Perseus earlier this week. The other girl was much smaller, and was glancing distastefully at the two men in the group. She probably was a hunter of Artemis, and probably was the one who shot the arrow.

The other two members of the party were rather similar in appearance. Both of them were rather tall, probably a bit over the six foot mark, and had curly brown hair and a smattering of freckles on their faces. They were currently quietly bickering with each other over something that I couldn’t quite make out over the rushing of the water. Even though they both wore expressions of irritation, it was easy to see that they had rather impish features, and probably had a mischievous look on their faces most of the time. Pretty easy to guess they were sons of my son, Hermes. It would make sense to send them as a scouting party as well.

I slid back behind the cover of my tree when I was done with my scouting, and turned to the other two members of our party. Thalia was looking at me expectantly, obviously waiting for me to inform her of what I saw. Annabeth was crouched further away and her face was obscured by the foliage, but I could sense she was waiting for my report too.

I held up one finger before miming the shooting of a bow, annotating one of the members of the party hopefully as a hunter of Artemis. When I saw confusion cloud Thalia’s face, I gave up on the particular charade and just gestured to her before continuing the shooting motion.I saw her eyes light up in understanding, nodding along as she waited for my next one.

I held one finger up once again, and mimed stabbing something with a spear. They both got that one much faster than the hunter. Before I could continue my improv, one of the two Hermes kids let out a louder than necessary exasperated sigh, following it up with some harsh words for his brother before he was shushed by the rest of the party.

I glanced over to Thalia and Annabeth to see if they caught who that was, they would probably be more likely to recognize the voice rather than my poor gesticulating.

I seemed to guess correctly, and both Annabeth and Thalia nodded in sync, the latter’s eyes rolling as she shifted to get into a more ready position with a sigh.

Satisfied that they were up to date on all relevant information, I turned away and continued to listen for any hints in what the invading party was up to.

I saw another arrow fly by and thunk into a tree across from our hiding spots, once again trying to drive any potential guards away. It occurred to me that they were probably going to go and grab those arrows again, seeing as there was no reason to waste arrows so early into the game. 

Annabeth seemed to come to the same conclusion as me, because she started to carefully make her way away from the bush she had been crouched behind. I followed her after she made it to another section of good cover, cautiously yet quickly crossing the more open area. Thalia followed soon after. 

It seemed we made a good decision as the hunter soon came over and pulled the arrow out from where it had been resting above my head. There was some more quiet mumbling, and the group then continued on their way towards where the flag was.

Thalia rose into a hunched over crouch, and began to follow them from afar as they picked their ways through the woods, scouting ahead, but clearly not considering the possibility of being flanked from behind. 

To my left Thalia had drawn to a halt and was readying her bow for action. She selected a blunted arrow from the quiver that was resting on her back and nocked it, drawing the cord back to the corner of mouth. The tips of the arrows had been dulled so as to only knock out opponents instead of killing them. Carefully, she took aim at the hunter that was leading the party.  Once she was satisfied with her shot, she let the arrow fly. It smashed into the helmet of the hunter, jolting her body roughly and knocking her out on contact. I heard a quiet murmur of an apology for knocking out one of her fellow hunters.

The rest of the party sprang away in shock with shouts of alarm, drawing their weapons and whipping around to face where the arrow had come from. But it was too late for them to properly retaliate. Annabeth had already taken the distraction and flanked around behind, drawing her dagger and bringing the butt of it down on the temple of the Ares girl before turning to face the Hermes boys.  

The girl crumpled to the floor where the other girl was laying already. The slightly taller of the two boys whipped around to see Annabeth, holding her dagger out to his head. The boy put his hands up, but let out a chuckle.

“Got us there Annie! But sad as it is to break it to you, you’re still outnumbered.” He said with a smirk.

The other boy turned to where Annabeth was standing, drawing his sword and pointing at her.

Unluckily for him, Annabeth had a couple bush dwellers with her. Thalia and I stepped out from behind our cover, her bow drawn and the blunted arrow nicked and drawn back at the ready.

The boy quickly dropped the point of his sword, replacing it into its sheath and putting his hands up.

“Of course you brought thunder 1 and 2 as well.” He grumbled. 

Annabeth chuckled slightly and produced a rope from the small bag she had been carrying on her, “Sorry Travis, couldn’t leave them unsupervised.”

The boy-Travis- muttered something under his breath before placing his hands behind his back to let Annabeth bind his hands. He quickly was knocked into a kneeling position and the remaining stretch of rope was used to tie him to a tree.

“What about the rest of them?” Thalia asked. 

“Chiron will come by and remove them from play.” She answered idly, already stepping away from Travis’ bound form.

She squinted in focus at the path that the attacking party had taken over the river. “Judging by the way they came, I think we can probably assume that the flag is on the west side of the forest, so no reason to check the east yet.” She said, starting toward the river.

Thalia nodded idly as she stifled a yawn, shaking out one of her legs from sitting in a crouch for so long.  

We continued our trek through the forest towards the flag shortly after that. We ran into very little resistance, the occasional border guard, but noting that wasn’t handled quickly and easily or avoided. We kept to the covert cover  of the undergrowth, staying out of sight as much as we could. 

Everything in me was screaming to stop sneaking around, to just walk straight into the middle of their base and demand that flag for myself so we could get this over with. But my fears of the Athena girl had grown steadily this weak after I watched her judo flip a boy from the ares cabin who was at least double her size for cutting in line for the lava climbing wall. After that I decided it was better for everyone’s egos and both of our health if I didn’t bother her. Mainly her though.

So I stuck to the bushes and snuck around like the punny little mortal currently was. 

Finally, after 10 minutes of stalking through the bushes, Annabeth held up a hand to stop us. We were on a ridge overlooking where a stream from the river collected into a small pond with a little island in the middle. There was thick tree cover surrounding the little glade-like area, and in the middle on said island was the flag with not a single guard in sight.

This would have been great for us if it wasn’t also a trap in bedazzled caution vests with a flashing neon sign pointing to it.

Oh no. They sounded like something Poseidon would say. I needed to get out of this stupid mortal body, and fast so I could avoid him for a couple hundred years and recover from this.

Annabeth—Completely unaware of the absolute atrocity that had just occurred in my mind— turned to face us with a frown.

“Anyone want to bet on there being a trap?”

To my left Thalia scoffed, “With the Hephaestus cabin on their team? No thanks.”

Annabeth ignored Thalia in favor of squinting her eyes to study the terrain below us. 

“There’s no trip wires or anything that I can see,” she said, turning her scrutinizing gaze to us instead. “Do either of you think you could hover over the ground or something?”

Thalia let out a slight shudder, “Nope, can’t fly, thankfully.”

Annabeth let out a snort at her response, a small smirk finding its way onto her expression. “Aww, is the sky baby afraid of the sky?” she said teasingly.

I felt my brain stop for a second. Was Thalia… Was Thalia afraid of heights? I shook my head at the thought, no, it was preposterous for my child to be scared of their birthright. That would be as if a child of Poseidon was afraid of the water, or a child of Hades who liked living and people.  The wind and sky and everything in it was hers to command, there was no reason for her to fear what would only obey. 

Annabeth turned her gaze towards me once again, an expectant look on her face. “I know you can thunder boy.” 

I scowled at the name, the slight scent of ozone tainting the air around us as it reacted to my displeasure. Asking me to use my powers, my ability to control the natural forces of the world, the power to destroy and create with barely a thought just for a stupid game I had been forced to play? I would never. It was offensive for her to even consider my abilities for something so menial, and it was embarrassing that they need the supernatural for a simple child’s game.

She must have gotten the gist of my thoughts from my expression, because the daughter of wisdom rolled her eyes and muttered disrespectfully under her breath. 

“I guess we're doing it the old fashioned way then.” she said dryly, and pushed me off the ledge.

With agility only thousands of years of getting pushed off cliffs by Poseidon could grant, I  flipped neatly to face towards the oncoming ground and landed with a roll and bent knees to absorb the shock. The thought of slowing my descent with wind did briefly cross my mind, but I decided the principle of spite was more important.

I rose to half-crouch— forcing back the anger I was feeling at being pushed down a cliff—my body tensed and ready for any danger that could come my way. When nothing came, I relaxed slightly, still on alert for any potential danger. Once I gave a cursory once over of the area to check for any surrounding attackers, I turned my glare back to the two chuckling juvenile brat-ettes above me.

“You’ll be glad to know it appears safe.” Fighting the rising anger in the back of my throat. I couldn’t do anything about them yet, I couldn’t risk the fates getting more angry with me and deciding to delay my return to my rightful place.

Thalia carefully slid down the side of the ledge, before carefully making her way towards me.  I cocked my eyebrow at her once they reached me before glancing back at the flag. 

She followed my gaze to look at the flag, before brashly walking straight forward, not even glancing at the ground.

I felt my lip curl in annoyance at her actions. What was with all the sneaking around if we weren’t even going to be tactical when the time actually called for it?

 Annabeth landed quietly at my side, as Thalia walked forward. Once Thalia reached the small mound where the flag had been stationed, she wrapped her palm around it, tightening her grip as she shot some cautionary glances to the foliage around the clearing. Once she deemed it clear, she carefully tugged the steel pole out of the ground, taking a couple steps back away from the mound to avoid any potential threats.

A couple beats of silence passed as we all stood frozen, too afraid to move a muscle in fear of setting off some mighty display that would make Hephastus envious. 

One…

Two…

Three…

Nothing. No water, no animals, not even a bird chirped.

It was as if the world had frozen in the tension of our decision.

I could feel my skin begin to prickle in that awful, hot sweaty feeling mortals seemed to get when they sensed something was wrong. We needed to move, and fast. This wasn’t going to end well.

The others seemed to get the same feeling. Exchanging furtive glances we cautiously began to back towards the tree line, carefully and deliberately placing each step as we went to avoid any small obstacle on the ground, sticks or rocks, it didn’t matter. Everything was now a live wire waiting for one small misstep, one calculation to go wrong.

Eventually, after what felt like centuries, we made it to the tree line and dropped into the comforting shade and cover of the undergrowth. We all seemed to release a collective sigh I didn’t know we had been holding, our shoulders relaxing slightly as the feeling of imminent danger left.

A loud flock of birds erupted from the trees off to the west, and we could hear the sounds of steel against steel. 

I turned to the rest of the group. Thalia had passed the flag to Annabeth who was clutching it tightly in her off hand. We made eye contact, and all seemed to collectively relax. The fighting meant the main brunt of our forces had begun their flanking assault to act as a distraction to allow us to bring the flag safely to our base with minimal resistance. 

The birds seemed to once again come alive, and I could hear the fast rushing of the stream once again. It was as if the world had come un-paused.

I froze in my tracks at the thought. Un-paused. What had caused it to stop in the first place. The girls ahead of me stopped their brisk jog to turn and look at me in confusion. My skin began to prickle once again, something wasn’t right. Something had been off. What was it?

Quiet, my brain whispered, too quiet. Everything had stopped, the wind, the animals, the water.

The Water had been quiet. It was a small stream really, nothing too large, definitely not large enough to make as loud of a sound as it was making now.

I glanced at the stream, which was now flooding at my feet from what had just been but a trickle. Suddenly, a loud crashing sound rang through my ears, like the sound that waves made when they swallowed you whole, tossing you around like a small toy designed for their entertainment, like a lion playing with its food before it killed. 

A force struck me in the back, knocking me to the ground along with my breath. Relying purely on instinct, I let the electricity in my body explode outwards in arcs of pure energy, striking whatever had hit me. I heard a low grunt at the feeling, and the pressure quickly left my back. I flipped up neatly into a ready position, drawing my short blade and preparing for combat.

Standing about fifteen feet in front of me was Poseidon, sword also drawn, and the water from the river—probably what he had used to knock me, and apparently Thalia and Annabeth as well to the ground. There was a crash from my right, and I could see one of my teammates, a child of Nike, fly out of the bushes with a crash, before rising to their feet and running in to assist whoever else was in there. 

Judging by the annoyed frown on Poseidon’s face, I assumed that some form of back up, most likely Perseus, was engaged in the fight over by the tree line. Deciding quickly to take advantage of the numbers we had, I sprang forward and aimed a slash at his chest.

He brought up his sword into a counter and danced off to the side of my swing. I pivoted on my foot and continued an onslaught, planning to keep him as engaged as I could so the girls could flank him when the opportunity showed itself. An opportunity came faster than expected when a tree came crashing to the floor just above where we were fighting, causing Poseidon to be momentarily distracted in his need to dodge, giving Annabeth the opportunity to lunge forward and thrust her dagger at the hand holding his sword. 

Apparently, the tree had caught him more off guard than I thought, because his knife made contact, the blade sinking into his strong hand, causing him to drop his sword with a yelp. He jerked back his hand, taking the dagger with him as he retreated a couple steps, putting the tree between the two of us.

Thalia, never one to miss an opportunity, took advantage of his predictable trajectory to launch a blunted arrow at his head, obviously eager to knock him out and end this fight as soon as she could.unluckily for her, Poseidon had a couple thousand years of experience on her, and obviously hand anticipated everything about her shot before she had even fired. 

With a casualness about the movement only someone of his level of ego could pull off, he jerked his head to the side, dodging the arrow, and in one smooth movement, brought his off hand up to pluck the arrow out of the air. He snapped it in half, before pivoting a complete 180 to meet Annabeth's attempt and a pin move with a side step before grabbing her by the arms and flipping her over and slamming her onto her back.

Thalia hesitated in the drawing of her next arrow, evidently taken off guard by the display of skill from Poseidon. That one second is what cost her, as Poseidon ripped the dagger out of his hand and threw it at her, calculating the amount of rotations it would need to strike her hilt first in the temple.

With Thalia knocked out, and Annabeth laying winded on the ground, my numbers advantage had quickly dwindled. Currently, I still had the advantage of having a weapon whereas Poseidon had none, but I knew better than to put any stock in that. I might be the slightly better overall fighter with a weapon in hand, but Poseidon could take me anyday in hand to hand with no problems. I was going to have to rely on powers if I wanted to win this fight, and I was going to have to win it fast before Perseus finished his engagement. The only problem with that strategy though was that while I definitely outpowered Poseidon in raw strength and power, he greatly outmatched me in his ability to manipulate and think on the fly in a fight. (Not that I would ever admit that to his face).

Not giving him the time to come up with anything that he could use to his advantage, I called down a bolt of lightning to strike the floor where he was standing. He dodged to the side, landing in a slight squat, and then dodged my follow up strike with my sword. I use the momentum of the swing to spin into a kick, which grazed him in the ribs as he was spring backwards.

He caught himself neatly, squaring himself up to me, and making a yanking gesture with his hand. I ducked instinctively. Before I even heard the roar of the water. A small, condensed jet of water launched its way over me right where the center of my back had been moments before. 

I sprang forward once again, this time jumping into the air to put more power behind a downward slash. I found myself once again quietly thanking the fates that they had at least left me as a demigod. I don’t know how I could have done anything without the substantially improved speed and strength of a demigod.

I brought my sword down violently in an arc, aiming for the top of his head, planning to turn to the flat of my blade to knock him out if he failed to block. My blow never made contact though, as Poseidon brought the stream of water he had shot at me into a condensed ball in his hand, which he threw up to intercept my blade. 

Just as our attacks made contact, he solidified the water, turning it into a block of ice that now encapsulated the blade of my sword. I dropped the blade quickly, intent on not letting his successful block stop me from landing a good attack at the very least, and brought my knee forward and into his sternum, causing him to double over with a gasp, his hands dropping along with the chunk of ice.

I landed on the ground, grabbing his head and bringing it into connection with my other knee before throwing him to the ground. He hit the ground with a roll, sliding into a crouch, a bruise already forming around his left eye, and a small trickle of blood coming from his mouth where he had bit his cheek. I reached down to grab my icy blade, now intending to use it as a club. Just as I started to continue my path towards him.

Once I reached my spot over him, I swung the club in a downward arc. He rolled to the side of my blow, quickly reaching out his leg as he rolled and catching me being the knees, causing me to fall to the ground. In the same motion, he sprang to his feet and wretched the club-sword from my hand, bringing it back like a baseball bat and slamming it into my side as I fell.

Just then, as though the world had just decided to be on my side today, something even better than a tree falling happened. The ground shook. The ground shook, and it shook violently under his feet, causing him to stumble and drop the sword because of his stab wounded hand, and probably the blow I had given him to the head. 

Never one to pass up an opportunity, I snatched the sword up once again as I exploded to my feet, dodging the panicked blow he struck out to try to dissuade me, and swung the ice coated blade at him, connecting once more with his head, ice shattering as I made contact. He fell to the ground once again, face down, and I walked over placing my foot on his chest, just as the ground rumbled once again, and this time more violently.

Some trees around us began to fall into the clearing, the sides of the hills caving in and causing landslides down into the stream. Over by the tree line where Perseus’ and the Nike kid had been fighting, there was another loud crash, but this time, Perseus and the kid both flew out of the tree cover. 

Alarmed, I removed my foot from the small of my brother’s back, all intention of gloating profusely and telling him how much he had gotten worse now gone. I reached my hand down to help him to his feet, my body once again tensing at the unknown. He took my hand, slowly rising unsteadily to his feet. Once he rose, he swiped his non-injured hand across his face, smearing the small trickle of blood with the dirt from where he had face planted into it.

I saw his eyes drift over to where the brats had exploded from the trees, his body instantly tensing, his grip in my hand tightening to an uncomfortable level. I could feel my heartbeat quicken and my chest tighten as I looked over and the now quiet section of the trees.

Standing right over the prone Perseus and Annabeth was a man surrounded in a glowing aura surrounding him and sending out waves of force into the ground. In his left hand was a long, curved, wicked looking dagger raised over his head and poised to strike.

Chapter Text

For the one thousandth time in my relatively short life, I have caught myself questioning my mother’s taste in men. Sure, he was an immortal god, and I guess conventionally attractive (Vomiting noises ensue), but that was pretty much where the good traits ended. The bad traits, such as the invisible, unremovable stench that attracts monsters greatly outweighed the good hair and easy tanning. I think I could live with the bad traits if showering took care of the monster attracting smell, but nope. I’m forever cursed to smell like a Bigmac to monsters— And Grover, but mostly monsters.

I think my life would have been significantly better if my chronically absent father had just ended up being the loser I always thought he was when I was a kid. Not that he wasn’t still a loser, but a more mortal loser would have been preferable. For example, I wouldn’t currently be about to be stabbed by some random demigod if I hadn’t been blamed for stealing Zeus’ zig zag fifty years ago. Well, maybe not fifty, more like, twenty. I don’t remember how long ago, but it sure felt like it was a long time ago. Being a two time war veteran does that to your perception of time. 

Look, what I’m trying to get at here is that it's probably indirectly my Dad’s fault that I am about to be stabbed.

And it had all been going so great. It was a nice day, the plan was going well, and I was about to go and claim a very long overdue victory in Capture the Flag. But nope, the fates wanted me to suffer even more. Atleast, that was what I was going to blame for not noticing a flying tree trunk that hit me in the stomach and sent me flying into the clearing. 

But hey, at least I was going to die next to Annabeth. I thought dazedly. I had definitely hit my head on the landing, the flying trees confirmed that. Trees couldn’t fly.  Well, except Thalia, she probably can. Not that she would, the wimp. 

Annabeth, my brain suddenly said, causing a jolt to run through my body, clearing my head. Annabeth was lying next to me. I couldn’t let her get hurt. 

The glowy man had just raised the strange, curved dagger in his hands above his head, a small smile on his face. Then, with a heavily accented voice that I couldn’t quite place, he said, "You were easier than I was expecting, Savior of Olympus.”

Easy my ass, I thought angrily. I didn’t fight through two wars, fought titans and giants alike, crawled through hell and beat a primordial to be called easy. The only thing easy about me was how I liked my eggs. 

With new-found resolve found through Annabeth being threatened and me being insulted, I threw my legs forward in a firm two footed kick, striking him directly in the gut and causing him to stumble back a few steps. I scrambled to my feet, my hands searching for Riptide in my pocket. I found it quickly, and brought it out, uncapping it and setting my feet for a fight. The short bronze sword sprouted from the uncapped pen, growing about two feet into a sharp leaf shaped blade. The strange guy made an annoyed facial expression at the sight of my sword, which brought me a surprising amount of satisfaction. Yeah, I thought, my stabby thing is cooler than yours.

Apparently my sword was not the thing he had been annoyed at, because at that moment, his eyes focused on something behind me and narrowed into a glare.

“Oh? Look what we have here!” He exclaimed, “That oath sure didn’t last long did it? There’s two more for me now.” He said, his voice becoming progressively more venomous sounding as he continued until he was practically spitting.

Before I could turn around to confirm my suspicions, a lighting bolt split the sky, crashing down with thunderous rage. For the very large display of power that a bolt of that speed and size was, the man seemed rather unbothered, even bored as he neatly stepped back, clearing the strike zone with a movement that almost felt fake. I blinked in confusion, it had almost looked as though he had fazed to the spot where he was now standing, but no, I had seen him step back, my eyes were just playing tricks on me.

Ghosty boy, or whatever he had going on for him, was giving me very bad energy. He was too relaxed, too calm about this situation. He was at a pretty severe numbers disadvantage, and that’s not even mentioning he was knowingly facing three supposed demigods of the big three.

Ghosty flipped the strange dagger in his hand, reversing his grip in one smooth movement. He brought it up in a smooth motion as though it was a bow he was going to fire. I blinked, confusion once again hitting me like a wave. It was a bow, where had I gotten the dagger from? My sanity couldn’t be going already could it? I thought I had a couple more years in me.

Judging by the sharp intakes of breath from behind me, I wasn’t going senile just yet. It really had been a dagger. But I hadn’t seen any movement that suggested he might have transformed it, it had just… changed? 

My musing was put to a sharp halt when I saw the bow swing to my right, and towards where Annabeth had been lying. I whipped my head around in panic just as I saw the arrow get released. 

Annabeth had regained her consciousness sometime during the whole lightning bolt situation, and had been trying to sneak into a flanking position when the arrow had been fired. She threw herself to the side just as the string of the bow snapped. But the shot was perfect, and her dodge had already been accounted for. The razor point was flying through the air in a perfect arc that accounted for the breeze that had been steadily picking up throughout the game. The arrow was going to strike, and there was nothing I could do about it.

A helpless scream tore past my lips as I watched the arrow fly and make contact with her. Time seemed to slow down. Was this Kronos getting one last laugh at me? Letting me see her die in slow motion? With every movement of the arrow, the sight of it ripping into her flesh engraved in my mind forever?

 Useless, useless, useless.

What good is being the supposed strongest demigod of today if I couldn’t even save those I loved? Everyone around me suffered, everyone around me met grizzly deaths. Crushed, blown up, drowned...

Why couldn’t it just be me? Why couldn’t I just take all the suffering from them? Was that not what I was supposed to be as the child of prophecy? Was that not why I claimed it, so Nico wouldn’t have to suffer through it? Maybe Nico was right, when we met in the Labyrinth. It should have been me, not Bianca, then no one would have died because of me, Beckendorf would still be alive without me to mess up the plan, and the bridge wouldn’t have collapsed. The list went on and on.

 The arrow ripped into her skin. I could hear her exclamation of pain from where I was standing. But… the arrow hadn’t hit her heart where it had been aimed. The arrow had struck her shoulder. A sudden gust of wind that could not have been natural had blown it off course. 

I didn’t notice the blows that had been exchanged with the man during the arrow’s violent arc. All of my focus had been on Annabeth. While I had been distracted, Zeus had leapt forward at the same time that the arrow had been released. They had exchanged a couple of blows, the man’s bow was now holding back the nipping bronze of Zeus’ sword. Had the gust of wind come from Zeus? 

I heard labored breathing coming from behind me. I whipped around to see Thalia, her hand swept to the side as though she had been directing traffic. A trickle of blood ran down her temple, and I had a brief moment of worry for her before my focus was once again shifted to Annabeth as a gasp of pain came out of her mouth.

“Annabeth!” Thalia shouted, rushing to where she was leaning against the trunk of a tree.

I quickly followed, the fight forgotten for now. The only thing I could think about Annabeth and how powerless I had been. I wouldn't have been able to do anything. if it wasn’t for Thalia waking up…

I could hear Thalia and Annabeth talking in lowered tones, but I couldn’t make out any words. The entire world was buzzing in my ears, and I was unable to focus on anything. That man…that man had just tried to kill Annabeth. I could feel anger boiling up inside of me, a pressure building up inside of my stomach. 

He had tried to kill Annabeth.

Kill her.

The only thing I could feel was hate.

No one hurt Annabeth. She was the better of the two of us. She was the one who hadn’t gotten countless children killed because of her incompetence. She hadn’t gotten Bianca killed, or Castor, or Beckendorf. She hadn’t failed to save Ethan, or taken out the bridge with Micahel on it. I had though, and I had failed her again. I had let her get hurt by Archane, I had let her fall into Tartarus. She had saved me over and over again, and I had failed her over and over again. 

Not this time, not again. I wasn’t going to let someone who hurt Annabeth get away.

I launched myself forward, using the small river behind to propel myself forward and slam into ghosty.  I rammed into him, sending him sprawling to the floor. I steadied myself, ready to spring forward to continue my onslaught. But Zeus beat me to it. His body was alight with electricity that arced out and onto his sword. He swung his sword in an arc at the legs of ghosty, slicing through fabric and flesh. Ribbons of red flew out of the cut and followed the arc of the blade through the air. I could hear his shout of pain, bringing me a sharp sense of satisfaction. Good, that was what he deserved. 

No, that annoying voice in the back of my head whispered, he shouldn’t have to die. He deserves it, the rest of me whispered. I shook my head, casting those stray thoughts to the side. I was going to carry out justice, give him what he deserved. What they all deserved for hurting Annabeth, for hurting demigods. 

With no more hesitation, I reached for the nearest thing I could pull on, his blood practically sang to me. No. I thought, Annabeth. I ignored the tantalizing power flowing just under his fragile body, shoving the thought out of my head. Instead of the waiting pool of power, I reached for the next closest thing and tugged. The ground exploded up beneath us, sending rocks flying upwards in a shower of detritus.

I used the film of debris and dust to my advantage, once again uncapping riptide and swinging it forward. I felt it connect with something fleshy and sink into it with a wet sound. Reacting purely on instinct, I pushed it into the object harder. My lips pressed together into a cruel snarl. I found myself hoping that whatever I was hitting was his skin of his neck. 

When the dust cleared, I could see ghosty kneeling on the ground, panting, but wearing one of his smirks that I was quickly growing to despise on his face. My sword was caught in his left hand, cutting into it and staining his tan skin red. 

Anger coursed through me in powerful waves.  Who was he to be smiling after almost killing her? I raised my sword ready to finish the job. But just as I was preparing to bring down my blade in on cruel strike, his lips parted, moving quickly as though he was speaking, but no words came out of his mouth. I halted my movements, confusion flowing through me at his actions, my anger fading. I could feel my sword hand drop a bit as my eyebrows knit together.

“Anything to say?” I asked, blinking dazedly. Why was I doing this? I didn’t want to kill anyone.

He hurt Annabeth, my head whispered, I hate him, that’s why.

Ghosty raised his head to meet my gaze, his lips still moving. The corners of his mouth stretched, raising his lips into a cruel smile as he whispered to himself. I could feel my ears begin to ring, my anger once again rising. Why did I care? I should just kill this guy. Anyone who dared to hurt Annabeth deserved it. My vision started to go fuzzy, the world seemed to swim, but I ignored it. I was focused on my goal, killing him. I raised my sword once again, reversing my grip and holding like it was a dagger, mirroring his actions from earlier. The arrow that he shot would be the last one he ever shot. No one else was going to get hurt by this bastard. 

If it hadn’t been for Thalia… My mind whispered for the third time. Luckily she could control the wind, otherwise…

Zeus could control the air too. Why didn’t he save her? He had gone after ghosty, he could move, he could have saved her. Why hadn’t he? Was he going to let her die?

The ringing in my ears reached a point where it was starting to physically hurt. I just needed to bring the point of Riptide down, it would stop the ringing, I would be able to think once again. Then I could deal with Zeus.

With one more breath to steel myself against the onslaught of my senses happening in my head, I brought the sword down.

Then it all went white.

-ercy!

Percy!

PERSEUS!

I let out a gasp, unaware of the breath I had been holding in, and collapsed to my knees. My head, it was still ringing. Why was it ringing? 

I looked around, gasping for breath. The world was spinning as though I had just gotten off of a merry-go-round. My shirt stuck to my back, I was completely drenched in my sweat. I could feel Riptide clutched in my right hand, but it felt… sticky? I looked down and sucked in a breath at what I saw. My hand was coated in dried, crusty red blood, fusing the skin of my hand to the hilt of Riptide. I wrenched my grip open with a ripping feeling running across my hand. It felt like having glue on my fingers and pulling them apart. I recoiled from the sword, standing and staggering backwards away from my discarded weapon. I felt my right leg buckle under me, unable to support my weight. I glanced down to see a gnarly gash running across the width of my thigh, bleeding profusely. I crumbled to the ground, content to lay there while my blood pooled around me, it was better than finding out what had happened, why I was covered in blood that wasn’t just mine. I let my eyes drift closed, trying to even out my breathing.

Sadly, my wish for the world to take me from consciousness didn't work. I could feel something soft get pressed down against the gash in my thigh. I let out a strangled sound at the feeling, discomfort rushing through my body. I tried to push the person away, but one of their hands caught my wrist. 

“Percy, come on, don’t pass out on me now.” 

Annabeth? That was her voice. But the arrow I had seen hit her. The shot had been perfect, how was she…

I willed my eyes open, driven by the desire to see if Annabeth was alive and well. Once they opened, I was greeted with one of the decidedly best sights in the world. Annabeth, alive, breathing, and well. Or, as well as someone with an arrow sticking out of their shoulder could be. The shaft had been broken off, but the tip of the arrow still remained firmly lodged in her perfect shoulder, that was connected to her perfect and very much alive body, much to my relief.

“Beth?” I managed, surprised by how dry my throat felt. What had happened?

I saw her crack a smile, her nose wrinkling in that adorable way that it did when she was happy. But her smile seemed strained, like she was trying to make me feel better.  I placed a hand under me to push myself up, grimacing as I pulled some grass away when I moved my hand. I looked down at my palm, now covered in grass sticking to the blood. 

I clenched my fist, like I was trying to squeeze the memories out of my head. I tried to remember what happened, but came up with nothing. I remembered seeing Annabeth get shot, but the arrow was in her shoulder, not her heart where I thought it should have been. After that, all I could recall was flashes of light and anger. I had, I had been trying to hurt someone. No, I had been trying to kill someone. Why? I wouldn’t kill anyone,

I felt physically repulsed at the thought, bile rose in my throat in response to the vague memory.

“What happened?” I asked, setting my jaw firmly and grinding my teeth as I prepared for the answer. 

Annabeth looked at me strangely before glancing behind her. I peered around her, hesitant at what I might see. The clearing was completely destroyed. The ground was ripped up, and there was water bubbling up from places where there hadn’t been any before. Trees had collapsed into the clearing, some broken in half, and some with burn marks. That alarmed me. What had caused that?

Standing just behind Annabeth was my Dad and Zeus. Both of whom looked as though they had seen better days.  My father was holding his right shoulder with a grimace, and I could see a good amount of blood seeping out from under his hand. His shirt was slashed open, and there was a thin stripe of blood seeping from the slash. Other than the shoulder and the cut across his chest and minus some cuts and scrapes with the occasional bruise, he seemed mostly okay. We made eye contact and he shot me a strained smile, before tensing slightly, and glancing nervously to his side.

Zeus on the other hand, did not seem okay. If anything, he seemed livid. He was bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow, and he sported many relatively serious cuts all over his body. What really caught my attention though, was how wet he looked. He was completely drenched from head to toe in water, and his clothes were sticking to him. 

“Do you not remember?” Annabeth asked, looking at me worriedly. 

I scrunched my eyebrows together, intent on giving my memory one more chance before I admitted defeat.

There… There had been some guy. It was the guy who had shoot Annabeth. I could see a face in my head, but I couldn’t make out much more than a silhouette and the memory of him having tan skin. 

“There was a guy, the one who shot you.” I said finally. “Where did he go?” I said, trepidation rising in me.

Annabeth looked at me weirdly. Confusion evident on her face. She placed a hand placatively on my shoulder, holding me down slightly to prevent me from rising. 

“Percy, I got shot in an accident. One of the Apollo campers shot me when they saw me sneaking around. A normal arrow got mixed up with the blunted ones.” She said, looking at me nervously.

“What? No, there was a guy, he… well, I don’t really remember what he looked like, but we need to find him!”

I looked around at the group, someone was missing. But I couldn’t place who. I let out a shout of frustration, pushing Annabeth’s hand off of me and standing shakily to my feet. Why couldn’t I remember anything?

“What happened then?” I asked, ready to be done with this. I thought I had a few more years of sanity left in me, but apparently not. 

“You randomly screamed and fell over, then when you got up you started trying to stab me. Care to explain Perseus?” Zeus asked, his voice low and tense.

I blinked at him confusedly, “What? No, there was someone else and-” 

“I think we’ve established that your memory isn’t the most reliable at the moment.” He snapped angrily. “Maybe I should have smited you when we first met, obviously you're dangerous.”

For the one thousandth time in my relatively short life, I have caught myself questioning my mother’s taste in men. Sure, he was an immortal god, and I guess conventionally attractive (Vomiting noises ensue), but that was pretty much where the good traits ended. The bad traits, such as the invisible, unremovable stench that attracts monsters greatly outweighed the good hair and easy tanning. I think I could live with the bad traits if showering took care of the monster attracting smell, but nope. I’m forever cursed to smell like a Bigmac to monsters-- And grover, but mostly monsters.

If I wasn’t some demigod who attracted monsters, I wouldn’t be in this situation with a very angry god/uncle plotting new and exciting ways to kill me. It was a good thing I was experienced in this situation, otherwise I might have continued my supposed attacking of him. 

“Fine,” I snapped, “I tried to stab you, whatever.” I turned my head to look at my father, “I didn’t try to kill you, so what happened to you?” I asked, my voice softening a tad, trying to not let my anger at his brother bleed into my relationship with my father, especially since it had just started to get better.

He furrowed his brow at me in concern, “Percy, I tried to stop you and you did stab me, very intentionally, with good form even.” He answered, gesturing to his injured shoulder.  “Sword went completely through my shoulder.” He said.

Suddenly, I felt my stomach drop. I looked down at my hand, my hand that was covered in blood that wasn’t from me. It was my Father’s blood. I felt the bile in my throat return, and I had to forcefully swallow it down, grimacing as I did. I took a couple deep breaths. Trying not to panic. I ran through some of the breathing exercises Paul had taught me to help me cope with my nightmares. Finally, I got my breathing under control. Annabeth was standing next to me again, her hand on my shoulder and the concern in her gaze growing.

“Sorry.” I managed to get out. Instantly cringing at how it sounded. Sorry was not the only thing that was supposed to come out of your mouth when you found out you just ran your Dad through. I focused on the grass below me so I didn’t have to see his reaction. I could already feel the progress I had made with him slipping away.

Great job Perseus, I thought, way to fail at everything your mother taught and hoped for you.

And it had all been going so great too. It was a nice day, the plan was going well, and I had been about to go and claim a very long overdue victory in capture the flag. But nope, the fates wanted me to suffer even more. Atleast, that was the only explanation I could come up with for whatever had just happened.

I felt one last spark of hope come up. The trees. I hadn’t destroyed the trees. I was certain of that. I had never been able to access that aspect of my Father’s powers. The closest thing I had come to was Mt. Saint Helens, and that had been more summoning sea water in the middle of an active volcano than me messing with tectonic plates.

“I didn’t destroy the trees!” I exclaimed, “What caused that?” 

Poseidon and Annabeth looked at me incredibly worriedly now, while Zeus was burning holes through my soul with the heat of his glare.

“You did!” He shouted, his anger spilling over, “you went completely insane, and started trying to kill us! You caused an earthquake, and half the forest fell over!” He shouted. “You're dangerous! No demigod should be able to access the amount of power you have, especially not ones that can’t even control themselves!” 

Zeus stepped forward, a storm had begun to gather over the forest in response to his anger. Lightning danced across his skin as he walked closer. 

Annabeth suddenly stepped in front of me, her grip tightening on her dagger. “Don’t” she said firmly.

Zeus halted in his tracks just slightly, before continuing. “Move, you don't have to be part of this.” 

“Yes, I do.” She said, shifting her stance to square up to him more.

Poseidon took a step forward, placing his hand on Zeus’ shoulder, jumping slightly as he felt the prickle of electricity dancing across his skin. “Zeus, don’t even think about it.” He said, in a low growl. “Are you even sure you can win like this?” 

It was very much a statement meant to rile him up, and it worked. Zeus halted in his path, whipping around to face Poseidon. “Do you really think he stands a chance like this?” He asked, spitting the words back into his face.

“I would prefer it if we never found out. Calm yourself, brother. I don’t think the fates would be happy to see you kill a demigod like this.” 

With incredibly obvious reluctance, Zeus let out a frustrated sigh, and began to walk towards the camp, bumping into me harshly as he went.

I had never in my life felt so out of control, so weak and useless. Dangerous. “You should have let him.” I said tiredly.

I felt Annabeth stiffen next to me, but that was all the warning I got before I was smacked over the head. “I don’t ever want to hear that again, seaweed brain. You’re not dangerous, you're not some dog that needs to be put down. Something obviously happened, and we need to find out what.”

“I hurt you guys. I could have done something a lot worse.” I said weakly, my eyes drifting to the stab wound in my Father’s shoulder. He had obviously been holding water to it seeing as the bleeding had stopped, and it looked significantly better than it had before.

I felt my shoulder get bumped lightly, and a hand came up to ruffle my hair. “Please, give me some credit. You were pretty easy to deal with.” he said snarkily. 

I bit back the grin that threatened to find its way onto my face, using my non-blood soaked hand to brush his hand off my hair. “Please, the only thing easy about me is how I like my eggs.” I said sassily.

He shot me a soft grin, his hand falling to his side as we continued our quiet trek onwards. I couldn’t help but smile a little at the content that was welling up inside of me against my will. Yes, something had happened to me, and we needed to figure out what it was. But for now -I naively thought- that was a worry for another time. I hadn’t ruined my relationship with my father by stabbing him-- probably should have expected that, it took a lot more than that to ruin a godly relationship. AndI was walking next to an only mildly grievously injured Annabeth, which as far as injured Annabeth’s went in my life, was pretty good. I could worry about the problems later, with the context ignored, this was relatively pleasant. Minus the gash on my leg.

By the time we made it back to camp, I was in a surprisingly good mood. Being around people I cared about did that to me. That thought made me stop for a second. When did I start to think of my Father as one of those people? I had barely interacted with him before this. I didn’t have any problems with him by any means, and as far as demigod relations with their parents went, we got along pretty well. But the extent of my feelings before the whole mortal situation were pretty much summed up with apathy with our relationship, and happiness that I had Paul to fill the void I onced longed for him to fill. Sometime during the last week, he had started to actually slip into the fatherless hole in my chest, and helped fill the hole along with Paul. After the initial bump we had, I found myself genuinely beginning to enjoy his company in the last week or so. We had a lot in common, in more than just appearance.  And I had also found that I needed to stop wearing some of my hoodies, because I did not look good in them. Even if they were nice hoodies.

Oh no, if this kept going I wouldn’t be able to blame my actions on daddy issues anymore. That wasn’t good. But I found myself surprisingly happy to sacrifice my go to excuse is it meant I got to spend more time with him.

I spotted Thalia grinning and holding our flag when we broke the tree line and entered the main section of camp. A wave of gratitude washed over me and I began to make my way over to her before I stopped. What was I thankful for? She was on the other team, she had found our flag and I had lost. But I couldn’t shake the feeling I should be on my knees thanking her for something. I shook my head in confusion, taking a step back. It was just another strange thing I had no explanation for. At Least this one didn’t involve anything destructive.

Will Solace was walking cheerfully through the celebrating crowd around Thalia, a smile on his face that quickly fell when he saw us. His eyes widened, and his eyebrows shot into his hairline. I could see his right eye twitch, and I could almost hear his internal scream. 

I swallowed nervously and took a couple steps back as I watched him storm through the crowd of people, pushing anyone who dared to be in front of him out of his way. I could feel Annabeth tense beside me at the sight of Will, and hear a nervous sigh escaping her lips. 

Poseidon looked up confused at the anxious sound from Annabeth. He knit his eyebrows together in confusion, before following his gaze to where an angry Will Solace was storming towards us.

“Oh.” was all he said.

“What. Happened. To YOU GUYS!” he shouted through gritted teeth. His voice rose as he spoke.

We all exchanged nervous glances. I swallowed and took a step forward, ready to explain.

“You know what, I don’t even want to know.” He said, turning and walking away. He went a few steps before stopping and spinning around, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Come.”

Like someone had just unpaused a movie, we all sprang into action, all nodding heads and agreeing tones stumbling along behind will as he marched his way to the infirmary, a wide variety of curses spilling over his lips.

“How are you three even still standing?” He murmured grumpily.

Just as he was about to pry open the door of the infirmary and tie us to the beds for some crazy amount of time like three days, A loud scream of terror rang out over the camp.

A voice anyone in camp would recognize. 

Ava.

Chapter Text

I’ll be honest, I didn’t recognize the voice.

Yes, I know, I’m a horrible person. I’ve been told that before, get in line. Odysseus has been on hold for a while—and I haven’t updated the music since Beethoven was popular. just thought I should tell you so I could give you a picture of what sort of ship I'm running here (The doesn’t care one). At this point, there’s a queue to get into the queue.

In my defense I did run off with Annabeth and Percy. It might have been peer pressured based, but I did go. So you can’t say I am that awful of a person.

I was genuinely surprised how fast Percy was moving after taking multiple blows to the gut and the gash on his leg, but I guess adrenaline is a real difference maker for mortal. 

“Ava!” Percy shouted, pushing his way through the now tense crowd with a sense of urgency in his movements. 

Ava. That was the girl who had mistaken me for Percy and then dragged me off to see the really cool fishies that Percy could talk to because his Father was like Triton from the little mermaid. That had been a strange experience. Perseus had given me an air bubble so as to not crush the little kid's dreams. She had also been very excited to show me the fish, and had asked Percy to tell me all the, “cool fishy facts” that I had, “never heard before.”

She had been very earnest in her excitement to show me around the ocean, and I didn’t have the heart to break it to her that she wasn’t as cool as she thought she was for having talked to a fish before. 

Hestia would have been proud of me.

Ava had also been very instant that she called me Perry. And that platypuses were blue. Which… What? Was I missing something? Last time I checked Platypus were still weird beaver-ducks with attitudes. I had just gone along with it because it was visibly pissing off Zeus, which was always a win in my book—Inaccurate animal facts aside. 

Hades would have known. He was weirdly obsessed with animals for the whole doom and gloom with a side of death vibe he had going. 

I had to catch my thoughts there before they could spiral any further. I didn’t want to accidentally start to miss my family, that would open a whole can of emotional worms I tried very hard to not think about.  I did miss Hestia though. She hadn’t been at the firepit in the center of the cabins since me and Zeus arrived. I had almost asked Percy about it, but had decided against it. I was more likely to know something about that then he was, and I was sorely lacking any information on what was going on. Which said a lot about the situation I was in.

I found myself wondering if this whole fiasco would have been any better if I was stuck with someone else—maybe except Hera. Hera would have definitely been the worse case scenario. But Hestia, Demeter, maybe even Hades would have been preferable to my younger brother. Hades and I may not talk a lot, but we were very united on the screw Zeus and everything he stands for front. It would have been nice to have some time to talk to him without the threat of Zeus hanging over our shoulders. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away(Greece), we had actually gotten along rather well—all three of us, to be honest. There had been a time where I had actively searched for the companionship of my brothers. Though that time of happiness had faded as quickly as a flickering flame, leaving behind scorched and scared hearts that had once been full of trust and love. 

I was forced out of my thoughts when Percy slammed to a halt in front of me, causing me to almost run him over. He was muttering curses under his breath that were echoed in sentiment by Annabeth. I was just about to inquire why we had stopped moving when I glanced up and saw it.

Hanging from the boughs of a pine tree by a frayed rope was the doll of a little girl, slowly spinning in the breeze. The neck of the doll was bent at a weird angle, and there were rivulets of something red that I hoped wasn’t blood dripping down the doll. Clasped in the broken jaw of the doll was a piece of paper with deep blotches of color decorating the edges. At the base of the tree staring up in shock and confusion at the macabre caricature was a man, his blonde hair blowing in the almost sweet breeze. 

I could feel a sense of nostalgia sweep over me when our eyes connected.

The air smelt almost sweet, in a strange, earthy way. It made me think of hot days and blooming hyacinths. 

I really should know who the blonde man is. But I can’t connect anything to him.

It really was starting to be a rather pleasant day. The weather had changed from the… What has the weather been like? I couldn’t quite place it. Maybe… Windy? Yeah, it must have been, because those trees had fallen over.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. My mind was drifting from the situation on hand. I needed to check the doll, the paper could be a clue for…

I glanced over to the man, he seemed to be confused, his lips were moving like he was trying to form words, but no sound was coming from his mouth. That was stupid. You were supposed to make noise when you talked. People can’t understand you if you don't use any words. 

I cocked my head to the side, furrowing my brow slightly in confusion. I looked at the strange man who was intent on making me read his lips in annoyance. His brow was furrowed, and his face seemed to have a tick to it. Was he angry at me? He didn’t get to be angry with me. I was the one who was angry here! He didn’t know how to talk properly!

I made eye contact with the man, he had shockingly blue eyes, eyes that made you feel as though he was gazing directly into you. Emotions seemed to be crackling just behind the blue iris’ like lighting. I frowned at the thought. I didn’t particularly like lightning. It was hot, and it made your whole body really tingly when it struck you. It also tended to act like a stuck up nepo baby.

I blinked strangely at that. Lighting wasn’t alive. What was I thinking? Maybe the blunt force trauma is getting to me.

When did I get hit in the head?

My eyes drifted back to the tree. Oh, there was something hanging there! I should go look at that. I started towards it once again, intent on not being stopped by anything stupid this time.

I heard a muffled noise of something behind me. It sounded vaguely pissed. Or it wasn’t vague.  Maybe that was just my ears ringing. I wished they would stop doing that. Whatever, it didn’t matter. I just wanted to see what the thingy in the tree was.

The tree exploded. 

Bright light cracked through the sky and struck the tree, sending sparks and pieces of wood flying out from its point of impact. The doll in the tree fell to the ground, smoldering slightly. 

I blinked in confusion. Wow, someone didn’t like trees. That felt a little uncalled for.

“What was that for?” I asked, annoyance dripping into my tone. I spun around to face whoever blew up the tree.

And there he was, standing behind me. His arms were crossed and he was wearing an expression that was a cross between annoyed, pissed, and maybe slightly worried. 

I probably made that one up. Zeus was always actively looking for a car to push me in front of. But I can dream.

I blinked in confusion once more when I looked at him. He was the blonde man. How had I not recognized him? I wasn’t a great sibling sure, but damn.

“To make you guys stop?” He replied, more a question than an answer. “Why were all three of you walking towards the tree like you were planning to kiss it?”

I made a face at that. The only tree kisser here was him. “I was going to grab the letter out of the doll’s mouth.” I said instead. Wow, look at that self-control. Who doesn’t have anger management skills again Hera?

Zeus made a weird face at me again before turning around to face Percy and Annabeth, both of whom were looking dazed. 

why were we here again? I could recall. It had been important though. I could remember that much.

Percy was blinky rapidly, as if he was trying to get something out his eyes. He raised his gaze to meet Zeus’. “You should, uh, grab the letter.” He said, his eye brows knitted together in confusion. 

Annabeth was nodding in agreement at his side. “Yeah…” she said tiredly, her eyes glazed over as she gazed at the floor. A couple of seconds passed in silence before she snapped her head up, energy returning to her, eye wide. “ Ava! We need to find out what happened to her!” She exclaimed. 

Percy snapped to attention beside her, “Ava! How did I forget that?” He said, confusion evident on his face. He turned his head to the tree, marching up towards the tree.

Right, the girl! That was why we were here. We were looking for her.

I glanced at Zeus, who had slowly been moving towards the doll as Annabeth and Percy had recovered from whatever that was. I nodded at him slightly, tilting my head towards the tree. 

He seemed to get my message, because he spun back around and began to stride towards the smoldering doll. He reached into the maw of the doll and removed the piece of parchment. He unfolded the letter, breaking the seal as it unfurled. A whooshing sound came from behind us, causing all four of us to snap our heads around. The doll had ignited into glowing golden flames before evaporating into a fine shining powder that covered the grass where it had once laid.

Exchanging glances, we slowly turned away from the pile of glittering ashes. Zeus glanced down at the letter, a small crease forming in between his eyebrows, and his lips pursing in concern.

A couple beats passed in silence. “Want to share with the class?” I asked dryly. 

My efforts from the betterment of the whole were met with a glare before he tore his gaze away from me and back to the paper, a deep frown now on his face. 

Annoyed and clearly impatient, Percy strode forward from where he was standing and made a grab at the paper. A hissing sound rose into the air as his skin made contact with it, and he withdrew his hand with a yelp. A bright red mark appeared on his fingers where he had touched the paper.

“Oookay.” Annabeth said, “No touching the paper. Care to share what it says?” 

Zeus opened his mouth once more to respond, “I can’t.”  He said, looking contemplative.

One…

Two…

Three…

“What?” we all asked in unison. 

Percy made another motion to snatch at the paper, obviously frustrated with Zeus’ decision to be cryptic. Luckily for his skin, Annabeth grabbed his wrist, halting his arms’ movement towards the note.

“Why.” she demanded sharply, her eyes narrowed in anger and distrust at Zeus.

He had the audacity to look confused at the aggression. He opened his mouth dumbly, before closing it and looking back down at the letter. His hands gripping it tighter. 

“Just… I need you to trust me on this.” He said, sounding uncharacteristically nervous and unconfident in his words. 

Percy looked at him in shock, anger coloring his face red in response to Zeus. “What makes you think you have earned a fraction of my- or anyone’s trust!” He exclaimed. “You haven’t once been able to keep your word for as long as I’ve known about this messed up family, and now your asking for trust?” He shouted. 

Below us a crowd of campers had begun to gather, looking up at us in confusion. I could see Dionysus making his way through the crowd urgently, looking like he was doing everything he could from smiting the children blocking his way to his daughter.

Annabeth put her hand on his shoulder, mummering placatively to him, “Perce, calm down, not here.” 

He snapped his head around, catching a glimpse of the crowd below. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he stepped away from Zeus.

“Why.” He demanded, echoing Annabeth from earlier. His arms were crossed over his chest and his stance was defensive. It looked like it was taking everything in him not to reach down and grab Riptide out of his pocket. 

Zeus glanced nervously down the hill to where Dionysus was storming up the hill worriedly. “I think the prophecy is starting.” He said simply, his eyes flickering nervously between his son and Percy. “I need to go.” he said quietly under his breath, already turning towards the boundary of camp.

A hand reached out and caught his shoulder. “Not alone you’re not.” Percy said firmly. “A camper is at stake. I’m not letting you take the only hint we have to her location and leave with it.”

Zeus opened his mouth to protest, but seemed to think better of it. 

“I’m-”

“I’m going with him.” 

Percy froze before whipping his head around to meet Thalia’s gaze. She was leaning against the tree, playing with the string of her bow angrily. 

“No one gets to touch Ava and get away with it. She had been through enough already…” Thalia trailed off, her gaze flicking to Dionysus, who was only a couple yards away now. 

“Where is she?” 

We all turned slowly to where Dionysus was standing, looking incredibly anxious.

No one made a move to speak. The three demigods' eyes were trained on the grass below us.

“Where is she?” He asked again, sounding increasingly more desperate. 

He let out a shaky, hissing breath between his teeth when no one answered again. 

“No…” He managed quietly, his eyes dropping to the floor. 

Thalia snapped her head up, a look of determination on her face, “I’m going to find her.” She said with finality. 

“You can’t.” Dionysus said miserably. “Not without a quest.” 

Thalia glared daggers at him. “I’m a hunter of Artemis. Not a camper. You can’t stop me from doing anything!” She gritted out.

When Dionysus finally looked up, his eyes were a deep, purple, swirling pool of madness. His gaze was venomous, but Thalia met it head on. 

“You can’t do anything not approved by Aretimis. And she can’t approve of it either. The fates have forbidden quests since those two fell in to make our lives a living hell.”

He whipped his gaze around to Zeus and I, his form flickering. Without Zeus, the anchor of his curse, he had more access to his divinity than normal. I could feel the back of my mind screaming at me to look away. That this was something my puny mortal mind couldn’t handle. I grit my teeth, refusing to look away. Mortal or not, I was not going to be intimidated by anything or anyone. Especially not my nephew who had seen make out with a cactus.

“But you can.” He said after a few agonizing beats of silence.  His gaze now trained on his father.

Zeus looked at him tensely, his face twisted into a slight snarl, and his lips set in a determined line.

“Do you think that I’m going to go after her?” Zeus said hotly. 

“Yes.” He said, a small, humorless smile finding its way onto his face. “Because the fates ordained it at the beginning of time. Do even you, oh thunder bringer, dare to oppose those who have the threads of life?”

Zeus’ expression had changed from one of restrained anger to one of rage. Without another word, he whipped around, storming towards the tree line that separated the world of gods and mortals.

“Don’t disappoint the fates, oh king.” Dionysus said spitefully. He spun around, beginning his trek back to the big house and then paused. He slowly turned around, facing our group once again, watching as Zeus’ form disappeared over the ridge of the hill.

“Uncle.” 

I looked up at him, meeting his gaze questioningly. “What?”

“Don’t go near the big house tonight.” he finished-rather abruptly I might add. And with that, he beckoned for Thalia to follow him. Thalia reluctantly followed behind him a cursing the while way.

Well, if there was any arrangement of seven words that made me want to do the exact opposite of what they meant it was those.

With a sigh, Annabeth turned to the buzzing crowd at the foot of the hill. “I should probably go help deal with that.” She turned towards me one last time, “You should hurry. We need to find out what he meant by that.”

The sun had begun to set on the camp, and I finally let out a breath that I felt like I had been holding for the last few hours. Between amnesia and bloody dolls, I had definitely had enough of today. But apparently the Fates had one more way to torture me today. With resolve to figure this out as fast as possible, I turned to where Percy was standing grumpily.

“You coming?”

It was dark by the time we had made it to the big house. Percy and I had borderline been assaulted by a crowd of people when we made it to the bottom of the hill. Everyone seemed to have made up some form of what that had happened, and everyone and their fifteen dogs had questions— none of which I cared to answer. Bold of them to assume that I knew what was going on either.

The funky night time insects had begun their simultaneously awful and kind of peaceful chirping, and the ocean was roaring against the beach in the background. For all that had happened, it was a surprisingly quiet night. But it was nice in a way I wasn’t expecting. It was almost calming for the world to keep working as normal after all that had happened. The ocean wasn’t in hurricane mode because I was stressed. The sky was trying to split the earth in half because Zeus was pissy. There was almost a strange comfort in the knowledge that I couldn’t affect the world around me right now- a relief in the lack of control I had over anything. No matter what happened, no matter how I felt, or what I had done to piss Zeus off, the world kept spinning. The night air stayed calm, the ocean was lapping happily at the beach. 

I was crouching underneath the window sill on the side of the house. I was tucked so closely to the wall that I could have stuck my tongue out and licked the nasty peeling paint. Not that I was going to. 

Percy was crouching slightly to my left, breathing heavily. It seemed that neither of us were built for stealth. I was doing everything in my power to ignore the pain in my knee from holding a crouch for so long in fear of somehow managing to slip and face plant through the wall or something.

Sucking in a breath, I steadied myself, reaching up and grabbing the rotting wood of the window sill and pulled myself up slightly so I could pear through the glass.

I blinked a couple times to help my eyes adjust to the warm lighting inside of the room. On the wall opposite of me was some strange taxidermy choices, especially considering Dionysus stayed here. I don’t know if it was just me, but I didn’t like the idea of having my sacred animal’s decapitated head adorning the walls of the rickety cabin I was staying in. Not that it wasn’t a nice leopard, just, strange. I was slightly curious where he had gotten it from. 

Directly under the leopard was an old, stone fireplace that looked like it had been built in the 1800s. There were a couple wooden rocking chairs arranged in a very shaky semicircle around the fireplace-And when I say shaky, I mean shaky. It looked more like a triangle than a semicircle. But like the kind and not judgemental person I am, I decided to give my nephew and half-brother’s interior decorating skills the benefit of the doubt. In the center of the semi-tricle was Chiron in (physically) handicapped mode, holding a mug of some long forgotten drink. He was staring intently at the flickering image of a tan teenage girl with brown hair done in a braid that fell over her shoulder. She was wearing what appeared to be a purple bed sheet, so it seemed she was Roman-probably a praetor.

Apparently, the walls were thicker than I thought they were, because I couldn’t make out any of their conversation through the walls. With a huff, I dropped back down into a crouch and turned to look at Percy.

“What did you see?” He whisper-shouted in what was probably supposed to be subtle. 

Heh, we were going to get caught, weren’t we.

“A bad chair arrangement, and some questionable taxidermy.” I responded with a slight smirk.

Percy-- apparently not in a joking mode—glared at me.

“Chiron was talking to some Roman praetor girl on an IM.” I said with a huff.

Percy perked up a bit at that, “What did she look like?”

“Uh.” I said intelligently. “Tan, brown hair that was done in a braid.”

“Reyna?” Percy asked questioningly.

I gave him a blank look. Was I supposed to recognize that name? “Should I know who that is?”

“I mean, she’s a praetor. Do you not know the praetors in New Rome?”

“Neptune probably does, but I don’t really care enough to know that sort of thing.”

“Are you and Neptune not the same person?” Percy asked, genuine interest crossing his expression.”I would have thought that your memories would have combined on something.”

I shook my head in response. “No, me and my Roman aspect are not the same person. It’s kind of like having another person in the same body. I’m aware that he’s there, and we can sort of communicate with each other, but I don’t have his memories, and he doesn’t have mine.” I answered thoughtfully, “I guess it would have made sense for us to be combined into the same person, but I don’t have any memories that feel out of place, and my personality is very much in line with how I acted when I was the godly equivalent of seventeen.”

Percy looked at me in slight surprise, “your guys’ personalities changed?” 

“I think it’s more of my brain getting forced into the mortal body of a teenager, and all the fun stuff that comes with that. But yeah, I think being turned mortal affects your mental state however it would be if I was actually that age.”

“Huh.” Percy said, “That’s actually kind of cool.”

Our whisper conversion was interrupted by a slamming sound coming from inside the house that made both of us jump, causing me to slam my head into the window sill. 

“Ow, fuck.” I said, gripping my head in pain. 

The constant mummer of conversation from inside the house went silent. We waited in silence for a couple seconds, waiting for the conversation to continue. 

After a couple seconds, the buzz of the conversation continued, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. Carefully, as to not disturb anything that might give us away again, I pulled myself up and slowly began to slide the window open. 

Of course, just our luck, it made an awful rubbing noise. I stopped my movements, waiting with bated breath for Chiron to turn around and seem me dangling like a toddler from the sill with my head half inside. Luckily for us, he seemed rather absorbed in his conversation again. 

I sucked in a breath before slowly continuing to push the window open. Inch my noisy inch, the glass parted to release the warmth of the warm fire burning within the room. When I decided that it was open enough, I slid to the side of the window and stood there to listen to whatever the two of them were discussing. Percy mirrored my movements on the other side of the window, cautiously peaking through the glass to see what was inside.

“Yeah, that's Reyna,” he said quietly.

I nodded in understanding before turning my head to also peak into the glass. There was no way I was going to be able to talk us out of this if Chrion turned around and saw us peaking through the window like a bunch of stalkers.

“I know we don’t have enough information! But these are campers, children that are going missing in the few places they are supposed to be safe! We have no idea what is happening! We can’t wait to see what happens next!”

“I know that Reyna, but we can’t be rash-”

“A twelve year old was taken today! There’s a pattern to the kidnappings, it done by the same people, we can’t let anyone else go missing-”

“And what if more people go missing while looking for them? We have to be patient-”

“You know something that I don’t.”

Chiron hesitated for a second, but that was all the answer Reyna needed.

“I can’t trust you to have a plan if you won’t even tell me everything you know. Good Roman soldiers are disappearing, and it’s my job as praetor to figure out what is happening and find them.”

A couple beats of silence passed as the two leaders looked at eachother, trying to figure out what the other one was thinking. Reyna sighed with a breath of finality. “Jason has already taken a search party out to follow the trail of the last one. I will let you know if he finds anything.”

With that, the connection broke, leaving Chiron in a room by himself. He signed, bringing up his fingers to massage his forehead in frustration. “Fates above, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Percy leaned further in towards the window, eagerly peering into the room to see what was happening. He slid his hand forward, now leaning against the sill of the window as he peered in.

The wood gave out from under his hand, sending him crashing into me, and the both of us into the ground in a heap of grunts and curses. 

“Who’s there?” Chiron exclaimed from inside the room. 

Percy and I both froze, glancing at each other in panic, before quickly crawling away from the window. I scrambled very dignifiedly up to my feet and immediately booked it towards the cabins, Percy hot on my heels.

“Stop right there!”

I did not stop. I was not about to let myself get sent to time out by a horse. My pride would never recover. 

I could hear the cantering of the hovers of the ground as Chiron took off after us. Percy was cursing under his breath as we ran, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds to confirm that we were still being chased by an angry handicapped horse.

We booked it for the first cabin we saw, barely even thinking about who could be inside. We stuttered to a stop as we met the side of a cabin. He was too close behind us, we weren’t going to make it to the front door. That wasn’t even considering that we might have to get someone to unlock the door. 

Luckily for us, I have a wealth of stupid ideas.

Before I could think of the consequences of my poor decisions, I scooped up the nearest rock and launched it through the window. I heard an exclamation of shock from Percy beside me, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from leaping through the window right after me.

There was no one inside. Great, I was counting on there being people inside. The cabin was completely dark, eerie, and had a very gothic feeling. In summary it gave me Hades vibes.

Oh, it was Hades’ cabin.

“Of all the cabins it had to be Hades?” I exclaimed. 

I heard Percy scrambling to his feet beside me before racing over to the door.

“What are you doing?” I said. Was he trying to get us caught?

He felt around the door, murmuring to himself desperately as he went. “Come on, come on…” 

The lights flipped on. Or I guess I should say torches. The lighting in the room seemed to be made of torches filled with greek fire in the fixtures instead of electricity. 

“Here, quick.” I was hit in the face by something. 

I caught it as it fell down, looking down to see a smooshed granola bar.

“Sacrifice that to him!” Percy said urgently.

A million problems with this idea came to mind, but I didn’t voice them. Hades hated us both, but maybe he would take interest if it was me sacrificing him something instead of Percy.

I peeled open the granola bar, the wrapper stuck the melted chocolate chips inside of it. A banging sound came from the door. 

In my haste, I decided it didn’t matter if there was wrapper on it or not, and that Hades could just eat plastic.

Without wasting another second, I sprang to my feet and threw it in the nearest torch. 

“Oh favorite brother of mine, please don’t let me get murdered by a horse.” I said quickly.

I could feel an icy presence was over us, and I had to suppress a shudder. Hades had always felt a little creepy, but it was magnified tenfold as a mortal. I felt the blood drain from my face, and my arms started to shake slightly. A quick glance in Percy’s direction told me he wasn’t faring much better. Good to know he was purposefully playing up the creepiness then.

A feeling of dread washed over me, and I heard the sound of wind gushing outside. When the wind died down. The banging had stopped. 

I looked at Percy nervously. Did Hades just kill Chiron? 

“Did he just-” We started at the same time.

I snapped my mouth shut, blinking at Percy before making a gesture at the door.

“Why don’t you check?” I encouraged with my best fake smile.

Percy looked between me and the door hesitantly. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and reached for the skull door knob.

A cold voice came from behind me, a hand slowly creeping over my shoulder and tightening its grip. I froze, feeling every inch of warmth in me fade.

“Well What’s going on here?”

Chapter Text

Thalia Grace was not having a good week. It had started off with a hunt gone wrong and a cyclops destroying three school buses, gotten even worse when her father had decided to piss off the wrong person for the last time, and ended with someone she considered a little sister getting kidnapped. And now to top it all off, she was getting dragged away by a crazy drunk fool to prevent her from going to save his daughter. To put it simply, she was at the end of a fuse that had been getting clipped shorter and shorter for a while now. 

Thalia had run into Ava Bell when she was tailing the Erymanthian Boar who had decided to take a tromp through New York. Artemis had tasked her with the slaying of the great beast, just as Heracles once had. It had been one of the most challenging hunts Thalia had ever been given. She had almost cornered the boar in a dingy neighborhood when she had heard shouting from a house nearby, and watched as a very evidently drunk mother threw a vase of decayed flowers at her daughter. The Mother—if she could even be called that—had all but kicked her out of the house, all while screaming obscenities at the small, crying child. She had dropped the trail of the boar in an instant, and had hurried towards the trembling child.

A gasp escaped the lips of the little girl, scrambling backwards with her eyes wide and tears pricking at the corners and staring in fear at a dying bush by the fence of the house.  

“Hey, hey, it's okay, it’s okay.” Thalia had murmured, dropping down to her knees and carefully reaching out towards the trembling girl. 

“It’s- it’s back! It’s gonna hwurt me!” She stammered out, a heavy lisp punctuating her words.

Thalia turned her eyes towards the bush, expecting to see a monster jump out of it at any second. Nothing moved, the wind even died down as if to prove a point.

“There’s nothing there, it's okay.” Thalia whispered, slowly moving her hands towards the kid until they were resting lightly on her shoulders.

Instantly as if her hands had burned, the girl jerked away. “It’s there! I’m not lying!” she exclaimed desperately, cowering away from Thalia as if she was expecting to be punished for being scared.

The huntress jerked away, giving the girl as much room as she could, her brow furrowing together in concern. On the inside, she was doing everything she could to keep her temper under control. Had that woman beaten this poor girl? 

“Here, why don’t I go check? Would that make you feel better?” She asked, slowly rising to her feet and backing towards the bush.

The girl's big, dark eyes had widened even further, her head shaking her dirty, matted braids with their frantic movement. “No!-”

Thalia ignored her, mind set on checking the shrub for whatever danger lurked within. Her hand fell to her waist where a dagger rested. She carefully wrapped her fingers around the hilt, preparing for the worst, and ready to protect the child and herself from whatever laid under the cover of the leaves. The branches of the bush parted, the thorns pricking her skin slightly as she peered into the foliage. 

Laying in a pathetic heap, in a small pool of blood at the base of the bush was a small kitten. Teeth marks that looked as if they belonged to a canine much larger than the small kitten marred the snow white fur of the cat’s leg.

The huntress relaxed, releasing the pommel of her dagger from her vice like grip, and letting out a small puff of air that she didn’t know she had been holding in. With a small smile now on her face, she bent down, to carefully scope up the kitten, doing her best to avoid the thorns adorning the branches. The cat let out a pathetic and pained-sounding mewl at the sudden movement, but once it was clear of the foliage it was quick to curl into the chest of its savior, offering a little lick of gratitude to her cheek.

With a smile, Thalia had turned around to face the girl—she should really find out what her name was— and slowly moved the kitten away from her chest to present it like an offering to the girl. “See? No monster, it's just a kitten!”

The girl didn’t respond, she still seemed frozen in her spot as Thalia approached her again. 

Bending down, Thalia gently placed the kitten into the still frozen arms of the girl. “Here, if you hold her still, I can treat the gash on her leg-”

Thalia was cut off by a shriek of terror from the girl, and a searing pain shooting up her leg from her calf.

With a gasp, she collapsed on the ground, quickly using her other leg to kick back at whatever had stabbed her as she rolled over, her right hand seeking her dagger once again. 

Her fingers found purchase on the rough leather of the grip, and she slid it from its sheath on her thigh. She thrust the blade forward quickly, hoping that the blade met her attacker somewhere where it hurt. Her wish was granted when she felt the cool steel sink into a warm, furry body infront of her. The monsters let out a shrill sounding whimper, before backing off from her, taking half of her pants leg and a good chunk of flesh with her. 

Thalia grimaced as she felt the hot, sticky liquid poor down her leg. The bite mark felt deep, and she knew she needed to stop the bleeding fast. But first, she had a dog to kick. Or maybe not, seeing as her kicking leg was out for the count.

She reached for her bow that was resting on her back, hooking it from her shoulders and bringing it down, drawing an arrow from her quiver in one more smooth movement. She bit the corner of her cheek to ground herself, and raised her bow to a ready. 

The hellhound before her had recovered from the stab wound she had inflicted on it, and was readying for one more charge. In the same movement, Thalia and the dog drew back, and launched. Arrow met mutt in the air, hitting it in the eye and evaporating the hound into a firework display of gold glitter raining down from the sky and onto the grass like the first snow of winter.

Thalia relaxed her shoulders, returning the second arrow she had already knocked to its quiver, and her bow to its spot on her shoulder before turning around to face the girl once again. She tried to smile at her, but it came out as more of a grimace than anything.

From her spot on the grass, the girl looked up at Thalia with an unadulterated expression of pure awe in her eyes and lips. 

Thalia kneeled down once again-favoring her one good leg as much as she could- and drew to eye level with the girl.

“Guess you were right about the monster.” she managed to get out, a slightly more genuine grin on her face this time.

The girl snapped her mouth shut, eyes flickering down and carefully hugging the small scrap of fur disguised as a kitten closer to her chest as if it would protect her from whatever emotions of fear she was still experiencing.

“What’s your name?”

Her eyes snapped up once again, lips parting to answer, but no sound came out. A couple seconds passed before the little girl murmured out an answer, looking anywhere but Thalia’s eyes.

“What was that?” She inquired kindly, gently reaching out one hand to brush some stray flyaways of hair from the girl’s brow.

The child looked at her eyes with Thalia’s, her throat contracting as she swallowed and said once again louder, “Ava.”

“That’s a pretty name.” Thalia said with a genuine smile, “My name isn’t that pretty.”

Ava giggled at her response, a light dusting of pink coloring her cheeks. A small, meek smile broke its way onto her face, decorating her pink cheeks with dimples. “What’s yours?”

“Thalia.” She said, slowly shifting to a seated position, setting her pack on the ground as she began to search through its contents for bandages to wrap her and the kitten’s leg.

“That is a pretty name!” Ava giggled. “It sounds like a princess name!”

Thalia smiled as she ripped the end of the fabric with the corner of her mouth, tucking the slight extra into the top of the wrapping. “A princess, huh?” She asked, holding her arms out for the kitten. 

Ava gave her the kitten carefully, stroking the top of its white head a couple times before relinquishing her hold on the feline. Her curious hands then found its way to where Thalia had stuck her dagger in the ground to clean later. “A warrior princess!” She said as she gave the knife a couple tugs before pulling her hands away with a huff.

Thalia hid her smile as she finished wrapping the bandage around the cat’s leg as tightly as she dared. Gently, she placed the cat down on the ground between the two girls before reaching over and yanking the knife out of the ground in one smooth motion. She brought the flat of the dagger to her shirt, and carefully wiped its surface clear of any dirt or grime before flipping it casually in her hand and handing the handle to the girl before her. 

“Careful now.”

With wide eyes, the girl slowly held out her hand and clenched the grip of the ornate silver dagger between her tiny fingers. She brought it up to her eye level, carefully eyeing the inscriptions and engravings of the blade with awe.

“My mentor gave that to me.” Thalia mentioned, popping a couple Advil pills into her mouth and washing them down with her canteen of nectar.

“Men- tor?” Ava asked curiously.

“Mentor. It’s like a teacher.” Thalia explained simply.

Ava nodded in understanding before carefully handing the dagger back to Thalia point first. With a small smile, Thalia delicately pinched the flat of the blade between her thumb and pointer finger, pulling it from Ava’s grasp and returning it to its sheath.

Thalia's mood soured as the moment ended. She would have to return Ava to her house at some point. It seemed like Ava was a demigod of some sort, she would have to get Chiron and Mr. D to send a satyr to pick her up and get her safely to camp half blood soon. She wouldn’t leave the girl in this house for long, that was for sure.

She rose to her feet with a grim expression, carefully helping Ava to her feet beside her. She was so small, even her hand felt thin. She definitely was not getting the proper care that a child needed. And that wasn’t even opening the can of worms that it was to have someone like that woman as a mother.

With a breath to steady herself, Thalia turned towards the girl once more. “I need to take you back to your house now Ava. Okay?” 

Instantly the girl’s face fell and she dropped her head, refusing to look Thalia in the face. Thalia had to turn away. She couldn’t look at her face when she was like this, or she would end up doing something stupid that would get her and Ava into trouble. She started forward towards the door slowly, her hand finding Ava’s and pulling her along lightly.

Ava wrenched her hand out her grasp and stumbled back a few steps at the sudden lack of support. “No! She doesn’t want me!” She said, tears coming to her eyes once again. “Don’t leave me! She’s going to hit me-”

Thalia could feel her heart shatter into a million pieces at her proclamation. She dropped to her knees, hands seeking the girl’s shoulders.

“It will just be for a day or two, then, I’ll come back and get you. Okay? You won’t have to be with her anymore, you’ll be with other kids who have had the same problems with monsters that you have, and you’ll find a family there. People who will love you.” Thalia said, voice cracking.

Ava looked at her with big, watery eyes. The kitten gently nudged her hand with its nose, and let out a sad meow. “Promise?” she asked, holding her pinky out shakily.

 Thalia's left hand went to her right wrist, closing around the delicate thread of a silver bracelet that was resting there. It was a simple thing, a thin silver chain with a bow and arrow charm dangling from it. It had been a gift from Phoebe as a congratulations for leading the hunt for a year. 

She slipped it off of her wrist, before bringing the loop of silver down over her small hand, pinky finger still out. She carefully reached down and slid the small metal ring closer to her wrist, tightening the bracelet on Ava’s thin wrist. 

“Promise. You’ll never have to be alone again.”

Thalia Grace had failed. She hadn’t saved Ava this time. And she had broken her promise. 

She was alone.

And Thalia had no idea what happened to her, or where she was.

The grip around her wrist tightened to the point where it was unbearable, snapping her away from her mourning. 

“What.” She snarled, glaring daggers at the man before her.

Some father he was. One who was content to watch his only daughter disappear to who knows where and make no efforts towards saving her. And Ava had been so excited to have a father…

At least they had that in common. They had a lot in common now that Thalia thought of that. Mothers who failed, and a father who failed even more spectacularly. 

Was that not what all demigods experienced though? 

Most demigods were not lucky enough to get a loving parent. There was no Sally Jackson waiting at home for most of them. No, most demigods had May Castellan’s or Beryl Grace’s at home, if not worse. That’s all that the gods had the decency to leave behind. Husks of a person who had a life full of dreams and goals, sucked empty and left with a child they had no hope of knowing how to raise. Is that not all the god’s left in the trail? Just ashes, dust, and a child to become estranged from their parents.

Children, abandoned, and unloved. 

And then suddenly in the form of a satyr comes a light, the knowledge that they have another parent out there. And suddenly in their hearts are but a small flame once again, hoping, and waiting for the care and love to grow into a blaze-The love and care they always deserved but were deprived of- just to have it snuffed out once again when the realize the truth of the gods.

That they don’t care. 

They take and they take, and they never give. You are groomed and raised to die gloriously for a parent that will never love you, never care for you beyond what you give to them. And then they end up as trees on a lonely vigil. Just resting feet from safety and protection.

But who was Thalia Grace to talk? 

At least she had Jason, she had family. That was more than most got. Most demigods' families were stolen from them in a violent whirl known as the will of the gods.

Ava didn’t have a Jason. She was truly alone in this world. That was why Thalia had stepped up, to be that anchor for the girl as she learned of the horrors of the world she would have to face alongside the rest of those unlucky enough to be born of the divine.

And she had failed.

“Are you even listening to anything I’m saying?”  Dionysus bit out, his eyes a luminous swirling storm of purple in the dark of the night.

“Why should I care?” Thalia snapped back impatiently.His grip on her wrist tightened once again. That was definitely going to leave marks. Thalia wrenched her arm free from his grip, rubbing at her wrist in pain.

With a sigh, Dionysus closed his eyes, turning his head skywards and muttering a prayer of patience under his breath. When a couple seconds had passed, he turned his gaze once more on her. 

“I can’t sanction a quest. That is what the fates have commanded. And I can’t leave the camp. That is the terms of my punishment. There is nothing we can do but hope that those who can move freely will go after her.” He said, his expression flickering before he turned his head away.

“Were leaving this to my father and Poseidon?” Thalia exclaimed in disbelief. “Do you not want her to get saved? She is your child!”

Dionysus pressed his mouth into a line, as we made eye contact. Then, he turned towards the cabins.

“You, don’t care…” She mummers as realization washes over her. 

She saw him stiffen, but he didn’t respond. 

“You don’t deserve her.” 

“Go to your cabin, Thalia.” he said with a tone of finality. 

“You-” She started, her voice peaking.

“Go to your cabin!” He shouted at her as a wave of emotion washed over her.

She felt crazed, angry, and confused all at the same time. The world seemed to be spinning. She grit her teeth together and the flavor of iron exploded in her mouth. Her head began to pound. She felt her knees give out, and she squeezed her eyes shut, hands snapping up to cradle her head, hoping to block out the ringing in her ears.

When she opened her eyes, she was in Cabin 8.

It was dark. But she could smell the comforting scent of the furs that the huntresses used as blankets when they stayed in their patron’s cabin. She was resting on one now, she could tell from the smooth, soft texture of a pelt below her. She unwound her body from the ball it had knotted itself into. Everything in her ached, as if she had just run a marathon. 

It was lighter out then it had been when she had been with Dionysus. The moon must be at its peak. Dionysus must have used some of his aura to knock her out. 

With a groan, she swung her legs around to the floor. Her boots were still on, that was good. With one final breath, she sprang up to her feet, and went to grab her weapons from the wall where they rested. 

Just as she was sliding her quiver over her shoulder, she caught a glint of silver in the moonlight. It was the bracelet. Ava had given it back to her after she had made it to camp and met her father. She was so happy…

The bracelet was still tightened to fit on her small wrist, causing more pain to shoot through her than she had expected. With a deep breath of resolve, she slipped the loop of her fingers, spreading them apart to widen the ring to fit her wrist. She would get Ava back this bracelet. She promised herself. She would beg for forgiveness from her, and give her back the bracelet. Maybe then, this weight would leave her heart.

With a newfound resolve, she tightened the strap of her quiver, and strapped on the sheath of her knife and made her way to the door. Locked

She turned to the window on the east side of the cabin, and tried to slide it up. With the horrible screeching sound windows made when they were on rusty rails, it opened. The cool night air rushed into the cabin. Thalia inhaled deeply through her nose, before releasing the breath out into the night. Looks like Mr. D forgot to lock the windows. With a newfound resolve, she jumped through the window and made her way towards her tree.

It had been ten minutes since she passed the border of camp when she heard it. A whooshing sound followed by the flap of something like wings, and the hissing of  snakes.

“Need some help there little sis?”

Chapter Text

AHHHHHHHHHHMMPH”

I jumped in surprise at the sudden cry of fear from behind me.Cursing quitely, I reached into my pocket, drawing out Riptide and uncapping it, whirling around to face whatever monster had managed to make the terrible god of the sea scared with tense shoulders and a rapidly beating heart.

Behind the form of my father, I could make out the shadowy silhouette of a figure standing behind him, a long, claw-like hand wrapped around from behind, cupping his face and siffling his voice with his fingers over his lips. 

I swung my sword instinctively, my instincts practically screaming at me in resistance, begging at me to drop my sword and run out of there screaming like a child(Annabeth) who just saw a spider crawl up the wall next to them. I forced those feelings back, forcing my worry for my father to the forefront, overriding my fight or flight response that was mostly just in flight mode right now.

My blade swung forward, catching the sharp gleam of moonlight filtering through the dark window of cabin 13 as it began the downward descent of its journey. I tense my muscles, preparing for Riptide to make contact with the flesh of whatever twilight-wannabee-ghoul was standing in the shadows of the cabin.

Thunk.

My sword halted in its movements abruptly, causing a shockwave to roll through me at the sudden change, my arms tingled numbly at the impact. Riptide began to twist in my hand from wherever it was grabbed, rolling my wrists with it to a painful angle. I let slip through my fingers and clatter at the ground, taking a couple steps back to give Riptide time to reform in my pocket. 

I was reaching into my pocket once again, my fingers seeking the familiar and comfortable form of the ballpoint pen when my brain finally caught up with what I was seeing. I froze, staring in confusion at the two figures in front of me before relaxing and rising to my full height, letting out a sigh of exasperation.

“Lord Hades?” I asked in a monotone voice, my eyes flicking over to my father who was pinned up against his older brother’s chest, his hand still clasped over his mouth. 

“Perseus.”

He spat the words out as if they were poison, his dark eye rolling up my form to rest on my gaze. I never had gotten used to his gaze—which is saying something for the amount of times I had waltzed into his yard and pissed him off. You would think I would have gotten used to him trying to kill me, but nope. He was like Nico if Nico was a thousand year old immortal being who was the literal embodiment of death and could kill me and my entire family with a flick of his finger(probably the middle one with my track record) and cast us all into eternal damnation for all of eternity.

He would probably think that the fields of punishment were too kind for me. Knowing him, he would probably set me to work on building the highway system between Asphodel and the fields. Or even worse, let Mrs. Dodds chain me to a flaming chair and give me algebra lessons for the rest of eternity. 

I shuddered at the thought.

I managed to hold his gaze for a few seconds before I flicked my eyes down, my palms sweating as I shifted from foot to foot. His aura was always one of the more oppressive ones. It wasn’t something like Ares that felt out of place and I could fight off. Hades did give me the creeps, but that might be the hair cut, not his aura. I couldn’t really tell.

He let out a sigh from in front of me, releasing my father with a harsh shove before raising his hand to eye level to inspect the cut from where he had caught my sword. The lord of the dead clenched and unclenched his fist once or twice, and the cut faded from view on his pale skin. He lifted his head, a slight sneer on his face as he trained his very judgemental gaze on the two of us.

“Must you always be so… you, Poseidon?” he said in a single long suffering breath.

I heard an awkward chuckle from my side, causing me to turn my head to look at my father. He was rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, his head turned down slightly as he wore a self conscious grin on flushed cheeks.

“Eh- sorry?” He said sheepishly.

I heard a sharp intake of breath come for Hades, he seemed to be struggling with not smiting his brother as he struggled to keep his cool.

The thought was appreciated.

“You knew it was me!” He bit out through gritted teeth.

I heard a scoff escape Poseidon’s lips, his face scrunching up in ridicule, “I wasn’t expecting your cold, bony fingers to grab me!” 

“I didn’t grab you, I touched your shoulder.”

“Then you practically shoved you hand in my mouth-”

“To keep you from screaming bloody murder?” 

“Oh yeah, says death himself-”

“Will you both shut up?” I practically shout, the words escaping my mouth before I even processed what I was saying. My eyes widened comically, and I could feel my heart drop to the pit of my stomach. Guess I wasn’t keeping my promise to Annabeth about not getting smote before college.

Both of the gods' heads snapped to me with looks of incredulity, neither saying a thing. My father’s lips were opened, ready to continue whatever stream of insults he was planning on throwing at Hades, while the other one looked at me strangely, both of his eyebrows raised in surprise.

I swallowed thickly, and took a step back, my hand already going behind me to search for the door. Look, I would take God in a fair fight any day, but regardless of what Annabeth says, I do not have a death wish. I have made it this far, I wanted to make it a little further before I bit the lightning bolt. 

Two big three members, even if one was a mortal and probably wouldn’t actually kill me—even if it was just fear of the retaliation of one Sally Jackson—was a decidedly not fair fight. 

Annabeth would be proud of my self preservation.

Just as my hand connected with the door knob, Hades barked out a laugh, causing me to jump and pause in my escape plan. I froze, looking at him in confusion as he chuckled quietly to himself. I could see my dad gaze following mine, a strange look on his face as he watched his normally gloomy brother chuckle.

“Uh-” I managed, tilting my head in confusion.

“You are much more enjoyable when you are not causing me problems brat.” Hades said.

I could see Poseidon tense out of the corner of my eye, taking a half step towards me, his arm slightly out and his whole body coiled as if he expected something to happen. 

Hades seemed to recover from his strange outburst, looking at me and Poseidon in amusement. “You can relax, brother. I’m not going to harm your spawn.” 

“Spawn?” I said, slightly disgusted. I could see my dad’s face screw up, evidently not loving the fish reference. We shared a look, both of us taking a breath before relaxing slightly. 

“Ha. Ha. Very funny, Hades.” He said flatly—which caught me off guard. His mood had done a complete 180 from when he had been bantering with Hades. “Why are you here?” 

Hades cocked an eyebrow, his head tilting slightly. “Did you not call for me, brother?”

“Asked you to stop Chiron, not show up.” Poseidon said bitterly.

Hades snapped his head back up, his face settling into a leer. “I don’t have to be here, Poseidon. I can leave without offering you my assistance.”

I saw him open his mouth to respond, probably something rude and insulting that would make Hades leave, taking with him the only assistance we probably were going to get to figure out this prophecy. 

“We would appreciate any assistance you can offer, Lord Uncle.” I said, putting on my best fake mask of respect and politeness.

Poseidon snapped his mouth shut, the corners of his mouth tugging down into a frown and his eyebrows knitted together. He cast a withering glance in my direction, before turning back to his brother with a sigh.

“Fine.” He snapped.

Hades seemed to relax at that, his gaze flickering up to look at the ceiling uneasily. If I didn’t know better, I would say he looked relieved. 

“Good, I don’t have much time. The queen isn’t letting anyone out of her sight for long with Zeus gone.”

“Hera?” I asked, confused.

My dislike for Hera must have been evident in my tone, because Hades looked at me with a wary expression. “Names have power, Persesus. She would have noticed that if I wasn’t shielding the cabin.”

“Sorry.” I mutter, my voice low and bitter. Hera was the last person I wanted to be in power, and yet here we were. I never thought I would find myself wishing for Zeus having more opportunities to be an awful king.

“It’s fine, but be careful in the future. She is not exactly happily awaiting you and Zeus’ return. She has been taking the opportunity to take out her frustration at Zeus on the rest of the Olympians. All contact with mortals is ‘strictly prohibited’. Her words.” Hades said.

Poseidon raised an eyebrow at that, “and yet here you are.” It came out in more of a tone of pleasant surprise, even if the words were obviously intended to be a jab at his brother. “Wouldn’t think you would be on the side of wanting more of me and Zeus, brother.”

Hades let out a long sigh, bringing up a hand to run it through his hair. “If there is one thing worse than listening to you and Zeus argue, it's Hera projecting her problems on the rest of us.” He said with no small amount of bitterness in his tone.

My father let out a huff, shoulders shaking slightly from laughter. “Glad to know I’m the worst thing that could happen to you,” he said, his eyes meeting his brothers steadily. 

I couldn’t help but look between them in confusion, feeling as though I was witnessing a conversation that would be better off private with no one overhearing. There was definitely some unaddressed tension in those words, even if not mentioned directly.

Hades managed a small smile, but it was thin and forced looking. His gaze flickered between My father and I, before settling on me. His mouth opened as if to speak, but he seemed to think better of it, and his lips closed, the moment passed. 

Turning back to address Poseidon, he reached the pocket of his dress pants and pulled out a golden chain with something dangling on the end that he promptly threw at Poseidon. Poseidon deftly reached up and snatched the gold out of the sky, his hand drifting down and opening to reveal the chain for closer inspection.

“Hopefully that will keep you from getting someone killed because you’re complaining about weapon quality.” Hades said. I could hear a grin in his tone, but his face showed no signs of the fond expression.

“Heh, thanks.” 

I leaned over, interested in what seemed to be an enchanted object that held a weapon. My father, seeing my obvious interest in what he was holding, turned to look at me before tossing the chain to me to inspect.

I let out a small yelp of surprise, catching it clumsily, barely keeping it from falling from my fingers in my surprise at it being tossed to me. I heard a huff of amusement form above me, but I block out my hater to inspect the chain.

I was a simple chain—a necklace now that I could see it more—but it managed to be ornately made at the same time. The links were small and thin, but gleamed whenever they caught the briefest gleam of moonlight. The small gold loops had small bumps on one side that formed the rough shape of waves instead of the usual links that accompanied a chain. A magnetic trident pendant was hanging from the hilt at the bottom of the chain, small green stones glinting in the prongs of it. Flanking the charm on either side was the same green stones, slightly larger and spaced apart as though it was meant to accommodate the addition of other charms or maybe beads on the necklace. It was beautiful, and I was astounded by the quality of craftsmanship on the small piece of jewelry. It made me wonder where Hades had gotten something so obviously made to someone of the sea. 

“Like it?” I heard my dad ask from beside me.

“It’s really cool.” I said earnestly, looking between my father-who was wearing a pleased smirk- and Hades who was glancing between Poseidon and I, seemingly amused at the whole situation.

“But, where’s the weapon? Is it the charm?” I asked.

My father answered this time, nodding in affirmation with a smile before gesturing towards me, “take it off.” 

I nodded in understanding, reaching up to tug at the pendant. It came off easily, slipping from the chain with a slight click and started growing in my hand. I pulled my hand away from my face in alarm, watching as the small charm changed into a long, smooth steel rod in my hand, growing and sprouting three dangerous and razor sharp prongs at the end.

I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open in wonder as inspected the it. The trident was about five and a half feet tall, and was a deep bronze color. There was a cross guard just under the head of it that transitioned smoothly into a slightly indented section that was obviously meant as a grip. The grip was carved with ornate patterns of waves and the ocean. I seemed to hum with power as I touched it, causing a rush of energy to flow through me. It felt divine, not like any of the Olympian thrones or Zeus’ lightning bolt, but more so than the average celestial bronze or imperial gold weapon was.

To put it simply, the trident was beautiful, striking even(pun intended).

I couldn’t help the twinge of jealousy that passed through me as I handed the weapon over to my father. The trident grew slightly longer as he touched it, adjusting to his slightly taller stature. The trident was his symbol of power, his symbol. It was something that Chrion and many others had told me I would be innately good at. I had been regaled by Chiron with tales of past sons and daughters of Poseidon who had wielded tridents, some the Poseidon had even personally gifted to them. But me? This was the first time I had seen a trident that wasn’t his. I had never had the opportunity to touch one, let alone learn to wield one. I had never been offered the opportunity to learn, or even experience something that was such a large symbol of my heritage. And if I was being honest, it kinda hurt. Obviously, if even Hades had a nice trident lying around, they weren’t particularly rare. Had I done something to make my dad assume I wouldn’t be interested in learning how to use one? Or did I have to pass some trial or challenge that I wasn’t aware of yet?

Or maybe he just didn’t care enough to give me one.

I watched as he brought the trident closer to the necklace. It shrunk, changing back into its unsuspecting form and returning to its proper place as the centerpiece of the necklace.

”Do you like it?” He asked from beside me.

I managed a smile and nodded in response, “yeah.” I said, trying to keep the hollowness I was feeling out of my tone.

I saw a pleased smile, then looked down. Trying to distract myself and get my stupid emotions under control. There was no reason for me to be feeling like this. I had no right.

“Who gave this to you?” I heard my father question.

“Amphitrite.” Hades responded simply. 

I watched Poseidon raise his eyebrows at that, obviously expecting more in the statement. 

“She practically threw it at me. Wanted to save everyone from listening to you complain.” Hades said dryly. 

“Wow, my own wife.” Poseidon scoffed.

“It’s a miracle that woman puts up with you.” 

“You don’t say?”

I had only met my father’s wife once, but it hadn’t been the most pleasant experience. In her defence, it had been in the middle of a war, and I was also her husband's bastard child. She had every right to not like me. So I guess my opinion on her doesn’t matter too much. In fact, compared to Thalia I had it pretty good. She hadn’t even attempted to murder me yet.

At that moment my stomach decided that it had enough of not eating, and kindly began to loudly growl in front of the god of the underworld. 

My eyes widened and I could feel the blood rushing to my face as both of the gods turned to face me, wearing amused expressions on their faces. 

“Uh-” I stammered out.

“Hungry?” Offered Poseidon, his grin growing wider  as he turned to face Hades.

They stared at each other in silence for a couple seconds, eyes locked in a staring contest. My dad seemed to win, seeing as Hades let out another tired sigh before turning to me.

“Do you want something to eat?” He asked blandly.

“Maybe.” I said meekly, with a sheepish grin on my face.

Hades closed his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose as my dad elbowed him in the ribs from where he stood beside him.

“Yes, I’ll get you something to Poseidon.” He grumbled with a surprising amount of petulance that took me off guard, not expecting the lord of the dead to almost pout at his brother who was grinning slightly manically.

“What do you want?”

I paused for a couple seconds in contemplation, deciding that if I was going to get fed by the god of the Underworld I might as well make him as uncomfortable in this situation as I was. I briefly considered asking for a full meal, but decided that it was too predictable, and that something annoying simple would piss him off more.

With a grin, I looked up to answer, “Bagel please.”

Hades blinked, staring at me with a flat expression.

“A- a bagel?”

I nodded emphatically.

“You could have whatever you possibly could want, and you choose a… bagel?” He asked incredulously. 

I grinned up at him, watching as my dad recovered from my random request much faster than Hades and was now nodding along with me. 

“Maybe toasted?” my dad inquired, raising an eyebrow at me. 

My smile grew bigger, to the point where it was starting to hurt my cheeks, “yeah, with cream cheese.”

I saw Hades' eye twitch, looking between me and his brother while muttering to himself. With a final sigh, he held out a hand, and a paper plate holding a perfectly toasted bagel with cream cheese spread perfectly over its smooth, butter, golden brown surface on each half appeared.

It was beautiful. Annabeth had competition for the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I held out my hands, taking a couple steps forward, and taking the offered plate out of his hands. I grabbed a half of the bagel, raising it to my mouth and taking a large bite out of it. I let out a quiet moan as the flavor of the bagel entered my mouth. I hadn’t eaten in hours, and this was a perfect bagel.

I could see Hades exasperatedly handing Poseidon a paper plate as well over the top of my plate. He rolled his eyes as Poseidon let out a cheer, happily accepting the food and taking a seat on one of the bunks. 

I walked over to the bunk as well, sitting down on his left side. He shot me a secretive grin that I couldn't help but reciprocate as we cheerfully munched on our snack.

I could see Hades looking at us tiredly from across the floor, but that didn’t stop him from producing one more plate and taking a seat on the bunk across from us.

“See! You wanted a bagel too!” Poseidon exclaimed through a mouthful of food at his brother. 

Hades stilled, glaring daggers at his still grinning sibling before making the plate disappear from his hands as he settled back neatly onto the bunk, his hands now neatly folding on his lap. 

I shrugged, hiding my amusement at the whole situation. “Your loss.” I added helpfully as I watched the situation unfold as the two brothers interacted.

! had learned very quickly after Zeus and Poseidon showed up just how incredibly and bafflingly human the gods acted. It had taken me off guard at first, not expecting it. Obviously, they both had ego problems beyond my wildest dreams, but they argued and bantered with each other, laughed and got annoyed at each other just like any normal mortal would. Yeah, They were normally all mighty divine beings that could end the world with a flick of the finger, but strip that all away, and they were shockingly human underneath the godly exterior. Spoiled, stuck up humans, but humans non the less. And now I was watching some of the most powerful beings in the universe sit across from each other on bunk beds, teasing each other over toasted bagels. 

It was strange-how when stripped of power and position that gods seemed to hide behind how quickly they showed what they truly were. A family. A traumatized, messed up family beyond anyone’s comprehension, but a family nonetheless.

I glanced between the two brothers as I mused. Both seemed like they were trying to hide their emotions behind a mask as they spoke. It was something I recognized all too well, something I saw every morning when I looked in the mirror. Neither of them seemed to realize what the other was doing.

I was shaken out of my thoughts by a hand slipping up to my shoulder. My Dad looked at me, sea green eyes meeting identical copies. 

“You all right?” He murmured, quietly looking over me. 

I stayed silent as I looked at him, but nodded slightly. His eyes broke contact with mine, looking anywhere but at me as he hesitantly moved his hand off my shoulder, awkwardly pulling his hands together and fidgeting.

I found myself quickly missing the warmth of his hand.

“Hera has been monitoring all of the gods, most of them have been locked in Olympus in one way or another. I managed to slip out since she can’t really do much to me, seeing as I’m not really an Olympian.” Hades said, continuing on, not noticing my silence or the brief interaction between father and son.

“Hermes has a bit of freedom to move too-” He cut off, glancing once more at the ceiling with a grimace. “I need to get going, I’ve already overstayed my welcome. Persephone can’t cover me for that long.” He said as he rose to his feet, dusting him already impeccable suit. 

“I would recommend starting at camp Jupiter, they have more information for you than you’ll get from Chiron or Dionysus.”

I felt more than saw my dad nod in understanding from beside me, also rising to his feet-albeit much slower.

“I have one more thing for you two.” He said, waving his hand through the air and pulling a cap from thin air. “You’ve used the hat Athena gave her girl, right Perseus?” 

I nodded in confirmation, glancing at the hat as I answered, “Yeah, her invisibility cap.” 

Hades nodded, obviously pleased that he wouldn’t have to explain anything to much—if the hat was what I thought it was. 

“This is a replica of my helm of darkness, so like her hat, but much more potent. I can’t handle as much magic as that cap can because of that, so it has a finite number of uses. Use them carefully.” He said, handing the simple black cap to me.

I took it form his hand, turning it over in my hand to inspect it. “How many uses are we talking? Like, four or five?” 

Hades chuckled, seemingly amused—which I found quite offensive. I thought it had been a good guess.

“If only. No, it might hold two or three uses at most. I mean it when I say use it sparingly-and only when absolutely necessary. It is much more potent than an invisibility enchantment.” He answered.

I pressed my lips into a thin line. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what more potent invisibility meant. Did he mean that It could bleed into objects that didn’t hold the enchantment? Was my arm going to turn permanently invisible from holding it? 

I switched the hand that was holding the cap to my left hand, just in case. I could live without my left hand, but the right? No way.

“I can shield you guys until you cross the border, but then you’ll have to move fast. Our lovely sister will definitely have suspicions of to where I have disappeared.”

I nodded appreciatively. Hades was doing a lot for us, more than any god had done for me before besides maybe Hermes before going to the sea of monsters. The possible end of their reign and the fall of Olympus wasn’t enough to get them to help demigods out this much before, which led me to believe that something bigger was going on than anything that I knew. 

Great. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what had finally managed to be so scary and dangerous that it finally spurred the gods into not sitting on their asses and letting their children do the dirty work for them. The last thing had been Typhon, and that wasn’t a situation I ever wanted repeated.

“Come on Percy, we need to get going before dawn.” I heard Poseidon say from beside me. 

I glanced out the window, and was surprised to see the sky was starting to lighten a little. Had we really talked that long?

I nodded, and headed for the door, hesitating slightly as my hand ghosted over the handle, “No one is going to see us, right?”

“No. You will be obscured from view and detection until the border, just like I said.” Hades responded.

I nodded in confirmation, opening the door and taking a step outside into the cool night.

“Poseidon.” I felt him stop walking behind me as Hades called quietly from the cabin.

I turned around to see the two of them staring at each other, as if trying to dare the other one to speak first. Poseidon turned around to face me, a small, tight smile on his face. 

“You get going, I’ll meet you at the tree.”

I looked skeptically between the two of them, before taking a step back and nodding. 

“Alright.”

I hesitated a second longer, I could see that both of them were tense. Whatever Hades wanted to say didn’t seem super pleasant. 

A sudden overwhelming urge overcame me, and before I could think better of it, I crossed the couple steps back to the threshold of the cabin and awkwardly wrapped an arm around my dad’s shoulders. 

I could feel him tense underneath me, and before I could do something even more embarrassing, I rushed off, murmuring a quiet, “Good luck.” and all but sprinting away, my face burning.

Gods, I was an idiot. I might have a decent relationship with my father, I might have been hugged by him before, but I had never initiated it. We weren’t like that. His affection in the past had been very spur of the moment after something with heightened emotions happened, like a war. That though? That was completely unprompted. Nothing really had happened. Sure, he looked slightly uncomfortable, obviously a little nervous about whatever Hades was going to say, but it wasn’t like that.

Gods weren’t like that.

Hell, I wasn’t even sure he liked me! Proud of me? Sure. He had made that clear. And from what I had heard and knew, Poseidon had always cared about all of children to an extent. Polyphemus was a great example. I knew Poseidon didn’t care for him tons, and yet he still screwed Odysseus over for ten years for protecting himself and his crew.

Care and kindness? I could do that, I expected that. But love? Real affection? That was a like I had never crossed-we had never crossed. 

I aggressively ran a hand through my hair, releasing pent up breath I didn’t know I had been holding, and when I was sure that I Was far enough away from the cabin that they could really see me even if they had been looking, I broke into a run, eager to reach the tree so I could stew in my misery and poor decision making that had probably ruined what little of headway I had made with my father.

Chapter Text

I cursed under my breath as the striker spewed forth a spray of spark into my hand, dropping the tool hiss. I reached my hand out, grasping at my wrist with a grimace as I looked at the offending mark of red slowly spreading across my skin. Mortals had made this look so effortless whenever they did this. 

I had always scoffed at them, mocking them for the complete reliance on the gods and our intervention. For what were mortals without their divine counterparts? They were but poor reflections of perfection of gods. A faulty counterpart to a masterpiece. They might share the same shape, the same form, and functions, but they were oh so woefully unenlightened. Like a horse with a cloth over its eyes, thrown out onto the course and told to run. And run they did, like wild, ravenous beasts with no direction or understanding other than the satisfaction of their flesh. But then, through the blinders came a bright light in the form of Prometheus,  and the blindfolds were ripped off their faces. Now, they were aware of the track, aware of the goal, and aware of those who had the power to direct them towards the finish line. They were complete, like a horse and its jockey.  

A horse is only as successful as its rider, afterall.

Gifted with fire- their lowly taste of the essence of divinity- humanity flourished. They grew, and learned, and discovered more and more of us. They were such curious things, so similar to the animals they walked along with, yet so very different. They caught the eye of the gods, and we began to mingle among them, teaching and leaving our mark and legacy wherever we tred. Demigods were born, and they accomplished feats of power and strength that humans never even dreamed of. Slaying the monsters and creatures of tartarus that weaved between them. As humans adapted and learned new things, they began to see themselves as the gods, for they had built the world all around them; had they not? And then we arrived to today, a time where we lived as aliens to the lesser. Forgotten, treated as silly stories for children. And those who knew the truth were no better. They had forgotten who we were, what we did, what we could do. And we had grown complacent in our isolation, softened and weakened the growth of those maggots.

I brought the striker to the flint angrily, the grinding sound echoed in the silence around me. Sparks erupted from my hands, spewing forth onto the brittle tinder resting on the campfire. The sparks landed, glowing white hot and melding together as they burned the tinder below it. Small tongues of flame lapped up, growing out and rising in an unearthly glow towards the sky. I stepped back with a satisfied sigh, watching as the sparks lept from the crackling pit below me and rose into the sky alongside its smokey essence. 

I tossed the flint and steel to the side with a careless motion before collapsing onto the long grass. It had been four hours since I had left camp halfblood, but I hadn’t gone far. I hadn’t even left Long island yet. I was camped on an isolated section of Montauk near the ocean, in the exact opposite direction of the way I should have traveled. I know what you’re thinking. Me? Near the ocean? Willingly? Yes, shocking. But excuse me for going to the closest place not being carefully watched over by an Olympian of some sort at the time. I wanted privacy, and with the lord of the ocean gone, it was the perfect place for it.  I also did quite like the ocean itself, it's more talkative personification? Not as much.

My mind had sounded an awful lot like a respectful and mature conversation between Demeter and Hades right now. And I wasn’t enjoying it. Uncertainty was not my thing. I was the king of Olympus for all the gods' sakes! I was supposed to be an unflappable, unshakeable, and confident symbol of leadership! But here I was, struggling to start a fire, next to the domain of an enemy, and on the verge of screaming into the sky. I had been everything but what a god should be-let alone the king of the gods. 

I was powerless. I was at the mercy of every whim, and every turn of a blade. I knew nothing, was unable to do anything. The only thing that was absolute was my lack of control over my fate. And worst of all, I was utterly alone. There was no one with me I could trust, no one I could be confident would not throw me to the titans the second they got the chance. Poseidon was just biding his time to get rid of me, I knew it. I wasn’t going to give him the chance though, I couldn’t. Not if the gods were going to stay strong. He would destroy them, our entire world and our whole way of life. 

And they would go along with it! They would side with him! To them, I was the unreasonable one, I was the paranoid one, I was the one who was leading us to destruction.  How could they not see it? How could they not understand? 

Poseidon was dangerous, Hades was dangerous. Their pride left unchecked was dangerous. The world would have been better off if I had left them in our god's damned father’s stomach. Maybe then the cycle would have ended, the prophecies, the constant threat of destruction of everything I knew are cared for.

And then there was the note. 

Whoever wrote it knew. Knew everything. And if it terrified me. 

The second I had laid eyes on those golden words inscribed on that paper I had known what they wanted me to do. It wasn’t far either. I could have made it there already. But I wasn’t ready to do that. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I would go, I would face what had transpired. But tonight? Tonight I needed to get myself under control. I refused to have anyone see me like this. I couldn’t show weakness. If it wasn’t for this stupid mortal prison I would have been fine. I would have solved whatever incident the fates wanted me to already.

I tipped my head back, a strangled breath escaping my lips as my eyes gazed up at the sky finding the moon quickly. Selene’s moon, Artemis’ moon. More gods faded or weakened because of mortals and the lack of faith. More of us being hurt because of their hubris. My eyes fluttered shut, enjoying the cool breeze coming in from the ocean and blowing my hair out of my face. Humans really looked at all of this and decided to cover it in concrete and plastic.

My mind flickered to the memory of a much younger version of my brother against my will. Brash, sarcastic, not a respectful bone in his body. A god you did not trifle with lightly, a jealous and dangerous god. One that mortals feared.  

An emotional, sarcastic mess with way too much power. 

But also a fiercely loyal and protective friend. Honest to a fault, and someone who loved deeply and completely. That was the brother I remembered after the Titanomachy. The one I had fought alongside, and trusted unconditionally. One untouched by the destruction mortals brought to the ocean, of the destruction they brought to our family.

His actions and personality recently have reminded me of that old him. The separation of him and the faded reflection the ocean had become brought back that spark that had made him so-well, him. The one I had trusted. And I hated the fates all the more for it. For dangling the brother I lost so closely in front of me. For even giving that fraud his face.

Every time I saw him smile it was like a dagger to my heart. Every time he interacted with Perseus of the Athena girl it hurt me. Because that grin was the one I had once been graced with. The one I could count on to piss me off and make me nervous for whatever poor decision he was about to make. The fates had made it look like him, even act like him. But I knew it wasn’t. I was just another cruel torture they had added into their machinations to break me. And I wouldn’t let it. The gods had to prevail. I had to.

I could feel something damp hit my cheek, sliding down my skin and leaving a damp trail wherever it went. I snapped my eyes open, not expecting the sudden intrusion on my thoughts. The curse was already on my tongue, prepared to be launched into the sky for daring to interrupt me with rain fall. But when I looked up I only saw clear skies, only marred by the occasional light, wispy cloud.

I stared in confusion at the sky and I could feel another drop hit my face when I finally realized. I was crying.

My head snapped down and I sniffed. I brought my knees up, my arms looping around them loosely as I stared at my lap. I was crying. This is what I had been reduced to. This is what the fates had reduced me to. Me, Zeus, god of the sky and king of Olympus, who had chopped his father into a thousand pieces and thrown him into the pits of hell at the mortal equivalent of thirteen, was crying. And for what? Poseidon? The real Poseidon had died thousands of years ago when he betrayed me. That’s what he was, a traitor. A traitor who deserved none of my sympathy, none of my tears. He had done that to himself.

I brought my sleeve up to my face, aggressively scrubbing at the offending streaks on my face. Damn this mortal body, and damn these mortal emotions to the pits of Tartarus.

I took a deep breath, trying to contain myself, and was surprised when a strangled gasp came out of my lips. The warm streams made their appearance once again, and though I tried, they wouldn’t stop.

And so I stopped trying. Maybe it was okay, just this once. Maybe it was okay to mourn what I had lost, even if it was thousands of years ago. Maybe it was okay to mourn the person who had once been, and curse the one who was.

Thalia Grace had not been expecting this, that was for sure. And maybe she should have been, seeing as two of the most important gods had been thrown out of their domains and turned mortal till they solve some unknown problem. But Hermes jumping at every single crack of a branch and twitching like a dog with a tick just out of reach was getting kind of annoying. And look, she was grateful. She hadn’t really been thinking her plan through when she decided to go after Ava. She had no idea what that note had said, and had no clue where her father dearest might have gone. So Hermes offering to give her some help and show her where Zeus had gone was appreciated. But the creeping through the woods and getting smacked in the face by branches the Hermes pushed through was getting tiring. She was pretty sure that there was going to be a bruise on her forehead from this. And to make it worse, Hermes had refused to explain why he wasn’t just teleporting her to Zeus. She had gathered that they were trying to be subtle by how jumpy he was, but was this really the best way to do this?

“Hermes-” She started in an even tone.

Hermes jumped, spasming in the air and managing to land on just about every this that could make noise in the forest. Thalia winced at the noise, taking a deep breath before continuing to ask her question to the skittish god.

“Hermes, could we just… I don’t know, teleport? Not that I’m not having a great time walking through the bushes with you, but I would like to get on the road as soon as possible.”

“Heh, yeah that would be faster, But I can’t risk anyone finding out that I’m helping you.” He said, running his hand through his hair to find the twigs sticking up from it and remove them.

Thalia raised an eyebrow at him, looking him up and down judgingly, “Is that why you came in bright red joggers?” 

Hermes glanced down at his outfit as though what he was wearing had just occurred to him, “I came just after dropping off some packages, okay? Didn’t have time to bust out my spy gear.”

“I would have thought the god of thieves would be more stealthy,” Thalia said scathingly, still looking at the god judgingly. 

Hermes let out an offended huff at that, “I am very stealthy,” he said indignantly, “But most people worth robbing aren’t hobos camping in the woods.”

He turned around, his hands now stuffed in his pockets and continued on ahead, waving a hand in a beckoning gesture over his shoulder without turning around. Thalia let out another sigh, before continuing on the path after the messenger god, fighting down the irritation and bitter feelings threatening to make their way into her mouth and out into words that would get her smited. She wasn’t happy to be around Hermes, and she could tell he wasn’t super happy about being around her either. 

“Why are you here?” She asked after some minutes had passed in silence.

Hermes snapped his head around to look at her, irritation evident on his face, “Because, Olympus needs those two, no matter what the queen is trying to tell everyone. It’s not good for there to be a power vacuum as large as the one those two left in the olympic council.”

Thalia paused in her steps for a second, surprised at the information. “Why would it cause a vacuum? Shouldn’t you guys be okay for a couple months until they sort out whatever is going on down here?”

“We don’t know what has happened to them. All we know is what Hera has told us, Zeus and Poseidon have been turned mortal. She hasn’t exactly been forthcoming in information. The new situation is working out pretty well for her, she doesn’t want them to hurry back anytime soon,” Hermes said, his nervous posture betraying him.

“She’s is using this as a power grab? Really?” Thalia asked. Hera didn’t like Zeus, that was common knowledge. But Thalia had always interpreted that as a marriage problem, not that she disagreed with Zeus’ rule.

Hermes didn’t answer, just turning away from her to continue on his path, “I’m sure you know the significance of the number 12 in our history, and with the lack of two of our members, she is using it as a opportunity to put two new gods on the olympic council, ‘temporarily’,” He said,choosing to not answer directly.

Thalia read his answer for what it was and nodded in understanding. She bit her cheek as she continued on in silence, consumed by her thoughts.

A couple more seconds passed in silence. The exited the trees, making it out into Artemis’ light and standing atop a cliff facing down towards the sea. Waves crashed aggressively against the rocks below them, the salty sea spray exploding upwards from its body to wet their faces as they stared out over the empty sea. 

It's almost strange. Thalia thought, looking out over the sea. It’s lifeless, in a way.

Hermes' voice cut through the silence, startling Thalia out of her thoughts. “Look,” he said, gesturing to their right across the cliff face. 

About 100 meters away she could spot the warm glow of a fire lighting the cliff. 

“Not where I would expect to find him,” the huntress said, her gaze narrowing in contemplation.

“Here, take this.” 

Thalia turned to face the god inquisitively. In his now outstretched hand he held a bronze butterfly knife. Thalia reached out, eye contact not wavering as she took the knife from him carefully.

“Thanks?” She offered as she inspected the knife.

“Touch the blade to any lock and it will get you through it.” He said once he spied her confusion.

Thalia blinked in surprise at the gift as an old memory resurfaced. She quickly repressed it and shoved the knife into her pocket, nodding her thanks.

“And-” he said, reaching once more into his pocket. He seemed to hesitate for a second, but he pressed his lips into a thin line before pulling out a burlap sack wrapped with twine and handing it to her carefully. 

Thalia grasped it in her hands, slowly pulling away, almost having to pry it out of Hermes hands. Once she had hold of it, he stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets, a deep frown on his face.

Thalia narrowed her eyes in distrust as she looked at the trickster god. “What is this?”

“Ask him,” He said shortly, turning to leave. “And don’t-” he said, whipping around to face her. “Do not, and I repeat, Do not waste it. Or use it on a god. Especially Aphro-.” He stopped mid sentence, looking at her wide eyed, almost fearful.

And with that cryptic, and frankly frightening sentence, he pulled his phone from his pocket, cursed under his breath, and disappeared.

Thalia glared at the spot where the god once stood.

“Most useless-” She snapped her mouth shut, her eyes flicking over to where Zeus was camped. “Second most useless…” She muttered, holding the burlap bag up to her eyes and inspecting it.

It wasn’t heavy, barely weighed anything if she was being honest. It seemed like a normal sack. Carefully, she unwrapped the twine and peered inside the bag.

Sitting at the bottom of the bag pathetically was a withered apple core. 

Thalia stared blankly at the apple, trying to puzzle what the hell was so important about this apple. After what must have been five minutes, she tied the bag closed and threw it into her pack with the rest of her stuff. She would have to ask thunder britches what he thought about it.

I had been staring blankly at the now fading flames for about half an hour when I was rudely hit in the head by a burlap sack.

I whipped around, my hand searching for a weapon--just to realize I didn’t have one. I tensed up, springing to my feet as I searched for wherever the bag had come from. I was snapped out of my focus by a muffled chuckle coming from my left. I whipped around, to throw some voltage at whoever had disrupted my contemplatingthatdefinitelywasn’tmoping. 

I relaxed as my eyes found my assailant. It was just Thalia. I should have probably felt some annoyance, or surprise, or something-anything really. But I just felt numb, I couldn’t find it in myself to feel much of anything right now. I felt empty, tired. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked tiredly.

Her eyebrows shot up at that, as though I had offended her. “Helping your ass.” She responded sassily.

“I don’t need it. Go back to the camp.” I said, turning around, bending down to pick up the bag that had been thrown at my head.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not letting you go find Ava without me.” 

Ava, right. That was what I was supposed to be doing. I had forgotten the whole note thing. 

Thalia must have taken my silence as acceptance, because she started towards me. She had a small bag slung over her shoulders, and strapped across that was a silver bow. A quiver hung from the side of the pack, and 24 sharp arrows were resting there. It reminded me of my own very noticeable lack of anything useful. The only thing I had on me was the flint and steel I had gotten very legally from a store in Montauk.

I picked up the bag, holding it an arms length away from me as I looked at it. “What is this?” I asked, resigning myself to her tagging along. I just wanted to get this over with so I could sleep. This felt like a problem for tomorrow me. Plus, I would need supplies anyways, she was much more prepared than I was.

She shrugged in response, “I was told you would tell me.”

That stirred some confusion in me. I turned to look at her, my gaze narrowed in distrust. How had she found me anyways? I wasn’t exactly camped in a reasonable place. “Who did you get this from?”

“Hermes dropped it off.” She answered.

My eyebrows shot up at that. That explained how she found me I guess. Hermes was notorious for helping out demigods on quests, but I hadn’t expected to hear from any gods while I was mortal. I had gotten the impression that they were preoccupied when I blew up half of the empire state building and they didn’t show up.

“Hermes?” I said idly, undoing the tie holding the bag closed. The twine fluttered down to the sandy floor, and I parted the lips of the bag and peered inside. I stared blankly at the withered apple core sitting at the bottom of the bag. It stared back.

Tearing my eyes away from the fruit, I raised my eyebrows and met the gaze of my daughter, “This is- uh, did he say anything about this… particular fruit choice?” I asked carefully, not wanting to give away that I had no clue why Hermes gave Thalia an apple core as a gift.

Thalia glanced between me and the bag and let out a scoff, “You don’t know what it is, do you?’

“Maybe I just want to hear his reasoning,” I bit back.

“He said to not waste it, and not use it on any gods, especially Aphro.” 

I knit my brows together with that. “Aphro? Like Aphrodit-” 

“Yeah, that’s what I assumed.” She said, interrupting me. “He also said to be careful about names.”

I nodded idly, glaring down at the apple as I tried to think of all the relevant apples in my life. 

“The apple of discord.” I said finally, “The one that started the Trojan war.” 

That was the only apple the Aphrodite would care about at least. It was also the only one I could think of at the moment. 

“That thing is still around?” Thalia asked, surprised.

“If you count this as still around, yeah.” I answered, shaking the bag as if demonstrating it lack of substance.

“So, what does it do?” Thalia asked, stepping closer to peer into the bag with me.

I reached into the sack, pulling the apple out of its burlap container. “It’s pretty self explanatory. It’s an apple cursed by Eri- err- cursed to cause strife to those who are subjected to it without knowledge of its purpose. That’s why you shouldn’t do it to gods, we know what it does.” 

Thalia nodded in understanding, “Oh, so it is useful.” She said, relief evident on her face.

I chuckled at her expression, placing the delicate fruit back into the bag and rewrapping the string. I handed the bag back to her, and watched as she placed it carefully in her pack. An awkward silence passed between us, each of us staring at each other uncomfortably as we waited for the other person to make a move.

It occurred to me during that silence that this was the longest I had ever talked to Thalia. Even with the week we were both at camp, she hadn’t stayed in my cabin. I wasn’t quite sure if I was enjoying this encounter, but I wasn’t really sure that I was even real at the moment.

Finally, Thalia broke the silence.

“So, what was on the note that got you so spooked?” She asked in as innocent a tone as she could manage. The effect was ruined by her uncomfortable posture and the way she was rocking on the heels of her feet.

I froze at that, not really mentally prepared to deal with that paper yet. I bit back the retort I had on my tongue, trying to relax. We were going to work together, she needed to know. And I needed her supplies. 

I resigned myself to my fate, one that would soon be very full of uncomfortable questions I didn’t want to and probably wouldn’t answer. I didn’t have the energy to resist her questions right now, let alone lie.

I opened my mouth, fully intending to answer her question as simply and quickly as possible, but no words came out. My throat felt dry, and my mouth felt like I had been chewing sand. After a couple moments of me gapping like a fish, I reached down, grabbing a stick from the small pile I had gathered for the fire. 

Kneeling down into the sand, I began to write the words that had been seared into my mind.

Chapter Text

You know the saying, ‘when life gives you lemons?’ Well, I have a problem with it. I can attest, at least personally, that I have never seen someone randomly given a bushel of lemons completely unprompted. Also, that phrase is assuming that I'm in a place where I am able to make lemonade. What happens if life gives me lemons and I’m dangling from the ceiling by my toes in a torture chamber? Not much lemonade to be made there. Also, what if you were allergic to lemons? You might not have time to make the lemonade if you're dying on the floor. 

I think the saying would be better if we replaced the lemons and lemonade part with something more likely to be dropped on your head unprompted. For example, it could be, ‘when life gives you an anvil, you forge a blade and go and stab all who oppose you.’ See, that would make more sense. I have definitely had more anvils dropped on me than lemons, so the situation is more realistic and applicable.

Lemons aren’t even the most likely fruit to be dropped on your head. Why not an apple? That at least has documented history of it occurring. I'm sure if Issac Newton had a lemon dropped on his head, he would have picked it up and gone to make lemonade. But instead he had an apple dropped on his head, so instead of going, “oh, a delicious fruit that would make a wonderfully tasty and refreshing beverage”’ He sat down and came up with the theory of gravity. Waste of a fruit if you ask me. I think most people could have told you that when you dropped something it went down.

He probably didn’t even eat the-

“Dad?”

“Huh?” I said, blinking as Percy’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Are you okay?” He asked, his brow furrowed together as he looked at me.

I squinted my eyes, “Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked in confusion.

Percy  looked at the dirty bus seat in front of us before turning back to me with a slightly amused smirk on his face. “You’ve been glaring at the bus seat for the last twenty minutes.”

“Oh, I was just thinking,” I replied, relaxing slightly at his question.

Percy’s eyebrow rose in mock surprise at my response, “Oh, really? I thought you were going to challenge the seat to a fight,” he said with a snort.

I glared at my son out of the corner of my eye, elbowing him lightly in the ribs at his retort. His hand rose to slap my arm away, shaking his head in exasperation at me. I opened my mouth, ready to lean into the playful banter he seemed inclined to start.

“Well, I hope whatever you were thinking about had something to do with how we can find those demigods.” Percy cut in instead, his face turning solemn.

I snapped my mouth closed, pressing my lips into a thin line and sitting up straighter in my seat. “Uh-” I stammered, replaying my musings in my head. “Yeah, something like that.” I said very evenly, with a tone that could not even remotely resemble squeaking.

Percy looked at me suspiciously, obviously not falling for my incredible deflection. He must have been a walking lie detector to not fall for that one.

“Yeah…” he said distrustingly, staring directly into my eyes.

Before he could pry(bully) me any further, the bus came to a screeching halt, throwing the two of us forward into the nasty, smelly seat in front of us.

I threw my hands out and caught myself just before my face could make contact with the forbidden fabric and pushed myself up, stretching to try to see what was wrong up front. I could hear the driver spewing out a slew of rather creative curses in Spanish. We were still in New York, and we were on a street lined with shops and restaurants, but I could make out what had caused the bus to stop.

I spotted Percy peeking over the edge of the seat to my left, one hand rubbing the corner of his head in discomfort. I snapped my attention from the bus driver to Percy, concerned about coloring my face. 

“Are you alright?” I asked, my face pinched slightly in concern. 

Percy glanced over to me, seemingly doing a double take, before turning his head away. I could make out his lips curving up into a small smile. He nodded slightly, his head turning back to the front of the bus, “Yeah, I just hit part of the frame in the seat,” he answered.

Comforted by his response, I turned back to the front. Nothing seemed to be amiss, but I wasn’t exactly a bus expert. 

“Why are we stopped?” I asked finally.

Percy’s face was pinched in concern, and his lips were pursed in thought, “Don’t know. But knowing my track record with buses, it could be anything from furies to the fates stopping by to say hello again."

I froze at that. “Agian?” I managed, maybe squeaking a little on this one. “When have you seen the fates?” I said, my voice rising slightly.

Percy turned to look at me, confusion written all over his face. “What do you mean? Did you not know that?” he said, seeming genuinely as surprised about this situation as I was.

“No!” I said, dread washing over my body.

Percy seemed just as taken off guard at this news as I was, which in my humble opinion he had no right to be. It seemed kind of important to tell your father that you had seen your imminent death prophesied, but maybe that was just a me thing.

“It was years ago now, before the whole lightning bolt fiasco. I was on a bus back home with Grover after the school year, and the grandmas showed up to show me their sock collection,” he said casually.

I felt like my heart had found a way out of the pit in my stomach and thrown itself into tartarus at Percy’s statement. I couldn’t believe it. I felt myself start to curse out the fates internally for their sick, twisted form of humor. Percy had already lived through multiple prophecies I had thought had spelled out his death. I had just recently started to let myself start to hope that he would have a chance to live out his full life. I had just let myself start to believe that his dream of going to college in New Rome with Annabeth would come true. And now I was being told that my boy wasn’t even going to get to do that?  

Gods, he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to have to throw his life away.

“Dad, are you alright?”

“No!” I snapped, whipping around to face him, “Why would I be okay?”

Percy’s eyes were wide, his mouth slack as he stared at me. He closed his mouth, trying to collect himself. Just as he was opening his mouth once again a loud bang sounded from outside the bus, followed by a cacophony of shouts. 

Percy stood straight up, pressing himself against the window as he peered out. He leaned back a second later, his face wearing a mask of confusion. 

“What is it?” I asked.

“It's… peacocks?” he answered, turning around to face me.

I furrowed my brow in confusion, “Peacocks?” I asked, trailing off.  My eyes widened as it hit me, “Her- uh, I mean- your favorite aunt.” I said.

Percy’s eyes widened in surprise. “Is she trying to find you?”

I pressed my lips into a line, a slight feeling of betrayal rolling through me, “I guess she is.”

“Wow, she really doesn’t like you guys,” Percy said with a snort before quieting. 

“I guess I would have thought she would go after Zeus first though,” He said after a couple beats of tense silence.

“She probably is,” I said with a sigh. “If I was looking for us I would start in New York too. It could just be a coincidence that she found me first.”

“Still probably not a great idea to get spotted by her bird minions though,” Percy said.

“No, probably not,” I said firmly, new-found resolve flowing through me. “We should probably find a way off the bus, the birds might be able to smell us.”

Percy nodded in agreement, his eyes already scanning the bus for an escape route. A grin suddenly appeared on his face, “There! This bus actually has an emergency exit!” he said, way too excitedly for something that is a legal requirement on all public transports. 

“Why would it not?” I asked, confused.

Percy was practically bouncing from foot to foot, his grin still growing. “Doesn’t matter! Let's just get out of here!” 

I shook my head in confusion at his excitement—fighting down a small smile—but followed after him nonetheless. We pushed through a couple people who were clogging up the aisle as we made our way to the back.When we reached the door, Percy reached down to the handle, twisting it downwards. The door didn’t budge. With a frown, Percy began giving the door a few forceful shoves. On the fifth attempt, the door flew open, taking Percy with it. I shot a hand out, grabbing his shoulder before he could tumble out and into the street.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, stepping backwards and regaining his balance before carefully stepping out of the bus. 

“No problem,” I answered, following him and hopping down onto the pavement.

Together, we creep around the end of the bus, stopping at the edge to peek out from behind it and inspect the foul fowl before us. In the middle of a small crowd sat two brightly colored peacocks, strutting around and obviously not afraid of people in the slightest. Every now and then someone would stick their hand out to try to pet the birds, but judging by the amount of snapping and squawking they weren’t very fond of being touched.

“What is with humans and trying to touch wild animals?” I muttered in amusement as I watched one of the more handsy crowd members get a good solid bite on their fingers.

I heard a chuckle come from beside me, “It’s your guys fault for making them look so pettable,” he said, amusement coloring his tone.

I rolled my eyes at my son’s response, “It was Epimetheus, actually. In hindsight (heh, i’m hilarious), you might be right, though. But you would think after getting bit or mauled for the tenth time they would learn.”

“If you don’t want people touching them, don’t make them so cute. It’s simple, really.” Percy replied.

Our conversation was cut short when the smaller of the two peacocks let out a loud squawk and whipped his head towards us so quickly that I thought it was going to break its neck. Quickly, we ducked behind the covers of the bus once again. 

“Alright, got any ideas on how to get past the demon birds?” Percy whispered. I could hear the click of their feet on the concrete as they tried to break their way through the mob of New Yorkers surrounding them.

I grimaced slightly, flicking my eyes over to meet my son’s inquisitive gaze. “Nothing that doesn’t involve animal violence." 

“I’ll forgive it just this once,” he replies, “Getting shish kebabed by a bird isn’t my idea of a good time.”

“Good,” I said, holding my hand out towards him. “Now give me your pen.”

“What?”

“Riptide. I need the pen.” I clarified patiently.

“No, you have your own weapon,” he said, his hand reaching into his pocket to wrap protectively around his sword.

“Yeah, well the pen has better aerodynamics then the necklace.”

“You're not even going to use the sword?” he asked, confused.

“If I was going to stab the birds I would have done it already,” I answered calmly.

“What are you going to do with Riptide then? Throw it?” He asked, slowly pulling his hand out of his pocket.

I refrained from answering, and instead thrusted my hand forward once more expectantly. “You’ll get it back, it will be fine.”

Hesitantly, Percy opened his fist and dropped the pen into my waiting hand.

“Thanks,” I said, rising to my feet to begin jogging around to the front of the bus. I paused my steps, turning around to face Percy. “ When you get the chance, run for the nearest building.” I said before resuming my path to the front of the bus. I could hear a muffled exclamation of, “wait-” coming from behind me, but I ignored it.

I dropped into a crouch once again as I neared the front of the bus, reading my weapon of choice in my hand. Now, you might be thinking, Poseidon, what are you going to do with Riptide if you’re not going to stab the birds? And my response to that is, I’m going to throw it at them. And now you're probably asking, Well, then why don’t you just use a rock? Why did you have to shake down your child for his most prized possession if you're just going to throw it at a bird? And my response to that is; I don’t want Hera to ruin my life for the rest of eternity because I gave one of her precious birds a concussion. I live in fear of what that woman has planned. I saw her list of ideas to get back at Zeus once, and that was one time too many. 

I steadied myself preparing for what I had to do. I sent a prayer to Tyche that luck would be on my side for once, and that neither of us would be spotted by the demons given feathery flesh. I took one breath, rose to my feet and chucked the pen as hard as I could at the leading feathery fiend.

A surprised squawk echoed around the street as both birds whipped around to face where their attacker had come from. They made some low clucking sound and bobbed their heads aggressively, causing some of the people around them to back away. I must not have ducked into cover fast enough, because I could hear the rapid patter of their feet on the pavement approaching fast. 

I didn’t have enough time to make it around to the other end of the bus, so I did the next best thing and rolled under the front of it, scooting under it as fast as I could. I could see the birds’ feet as they rounded the corner of the bus, and came to a halt directly in front of me. Quickly as I could, I army crawled my way further under the bus, trying to get past the first wheel so I could escape out onto the sidewalk. 

From my position under the bus, I could see when Percy dashed out of his cover and into the closest store. I could hear the birds moving, and from the sound of it, they had made their way to the side of the bus. I froze, scared to make any noise that would let them in on my position. I glanced back, craning my neck to see where they were. The birds were now stopped directly behind me, and clucking quietly to themselves. Just as I thought they were about to move on, a head appeared under the bus, a head of the nasty bird variety.

With a jolt of panic, I pushed myself forward, propelling myself out from under the bus and scrambling onto the curb like a man possessed. I could hear gasps of surprise from the people around me as they took a step back, probably wondering what sort of gremlin just emerged from the sewer grate under the bus. I exploded to my feet, and sprinted forward, aiming for the door I had seen Percy run in. 

I threw open the door, slamming it closed the second I was through the doorway, pinning it closed with my back, gasping as I tried to catch my breath. The room I had run into quieted, all eyes turning to stare at the newcomer. 

I let out a slight chuckle before plastering on the most charming smile I could manage in my current state. I wasn’t sure how effective it was, though,  seeing as I was covered in dirt and looked like I had just taken a romp in the gutters. Which I guess I had.

Eventually, everyone seemed to lose interest in me, and turned back to their tables. I stepped away from the door, dusting myself off as best I could before turning to examine the establishment and locate where Percy went.

It was a rather nice building, all things considered. A restaurant of some kind, probably some asian cuisine of sorts guessing by the decor that was on the walls. It was a rather small building, but there was still a good amount of tables surrounding a desk in the middle that was probably used to check in customers. And standing just in front of said checkout was Percy, a smile on his face, and a hand beckoning me over.

I started my way over, eying the older lady behind the desk somewhat warily. If there is anything that you should learn from Greek mythology, it’s that old ladies are usually witches and are not to be trusted. With this in mind, I strided forward, coming to a rest at Percy’s shoulder, looking up at the lady with what I thought was a polite smile.

“Hello Ma’am,” I managed to get out, despite my distrust of old ladies. Hades would be proud of me. Or not. He was like old lady central.

“Oh, look at the two of you! You must be twins!” The old lady said in accented English. 

“Twins?” I said, stunned, “he’s my-”

“Twin! Uh, yeah, twins! That’s us!” Percy exclaimed, nodding emphatically, using his hands to gesture wildly between the two of us.

The old lady let out a chuckle, “I could tell! The two of you are almost identical!”

“We’re not-” I started.

“Oh! I have a granddaughter just around your age! Maybe the two of you could go out sometime!” the old lady said cheerfully with a big, toothy grin.

“Uh,-” Percy stammered, a slight flush on his face at the lady’s words, “that’s very sweet Adachi-san, But I have a girlfriend.”

Oh, I’m sorry sweetie! I was talking to your brother.” 

Percy blinked, his head turning to me, a grin slowly growing on his face. I stared at him blankly, confused.

“I'm sorry Ma’am-” I stared.

Oh.

Oh.

I was the brother.

I could feel blood rush to my face as the realization hit me. “Uh-”

“You’re a very handsome young man!” The woman continued, completely unaware of the horror that had just washed over me. “She was just telling me last week how much she likes tan guys-” she said as she reached across the desk and pinched my cheek.

My horror only multiplied as words kept pouring out of her mouth. Not only was my cheek being pinched like a grandma would to a toddler, But this woman was trying to set me up with her 16, maybe 17 year old granddaughter.

“I’m sorry Adachi-san,” I managed, “I- uh, I have a wif- uh, girlfriend too.” I said, reaching up and carefully brushing her hand away from my face.

I almost felt bad when I saw her face fall. She seemed like a sweet lady, even though she was trying to convince me to go on a date with a minor. 

“Oh, It’s okay. It makes sense that two handsome young men like you would be dating someone,” She responded. After a second of two, she seemed to regain her composure. She turned to Percy with a cheerful smile once again appearing on her face.

“Well, the least I can do is offer the two of you some food. If I could set you up with a table for you and-” She trailed off, her gaze flicking over to me inquisitively. 

Percy and the lady stared at me for a couple beats, before Percy gently elbowed me in the ribs. “Your name, Da- uh, Brother?”

“Oh, sorry. Uh- yeah, P-, Pierce?  My name’s Pierce” I stammered out.

Adachi, seemingly completely unaware of the multiple slip ups she just witnessed, simply smiled and exited from behind the desk, gesturing for us to follow her.

When she turned her back, I snapped my head over to Percy, just to see that he had done the same.

“Dad? Really?” I mouthed to him.

He rolled his eyes at me before mockingly mouthing back, “Puh, puh, Pierce?” 

I scrunched my face in annoyance, making a face at him.

“Are you two coming?” Adachi’s voice echoed throughout the room.

“Yeah! just a second, sorry!” Percy called back before turning back to me to stick his tongue out at me like the mature person he was.

I decided to be the bigger man and ignored him, simply hitting his shoulder with mine as I passed him to follow Adachi to the table.

I sat down at the small table provided, smiling gratefully up to her. “Thank you Adachi-san.” I said pleasantly.

She returned my smile before placing two menus on the table before us. “When you are ready to order, give me a holler and I’ll get you your food,” she said politely before walking away.

I let my gaze follow her for a while longer, watching her return to her desk, smiling politely and helping the lady who was waiting at the desk. When the woman finished and walked away, her smile dropped. She picked up the phone next to her, punching in a number before bringing it up to her ear and crossing her arms with a huff. She shot a glance our way, causing me to divert my gaze down to the menus in front of me, hoping she didn’t see me staring.

“You have a girlfriend, huh?” Percy said flatly, dropping down into his seat across from me, a teasing smile on his face.

“Would Amphitrite like that? Being lowered to, ‘girlfriend?’” Percy’s grin grew, “is that the line you used on Mom?”

I shot a scowl at Percy, not enjoying the way this conversation was going. “What was I supposed to say? That I’m married? I’m currently a teenager, if you haven’t noticed. That would have raised more questions than saying I had a girlfriend.” I said, picking up one of the menus to inspect my food options. I hadn’t noticed with the eventful day, but I was quite hungry.

I saw Percy mirror my actions over the rim of the menu, a slightly guilty expression on his face, “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to start anything.” He muttered.

I set down my menu with a sigh, abandoning my searching for the perfect combination of sushi. I reached my hand across the table, pulling down the top of Percy’s menu until he relented it and placed it on the table where I had abandoned mine.

“It’s fine, Percy. You didn’t do anything. You were just joking, there wasn’t any reason for me to get annoyed.”

Percy hesitantly raised his hand, before lightly placing it on mine in a comforting gesture. We sat there in silence for a bit, basking in each other's presence. Eventually, Percy glanced up at me, and quickly removed his hand from mine, folding his hand in his lap and glancing down at the menu on the table.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“Sorry?” I questioned, confused. “For what?”

Percy opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment Adachi chose to return to our table, cutting off whatever he was going to say.

“Have you guys decided what you want yet?” She asked.

Percy’s gaze flicked over to me, his eyebrows raised in question.

“I’ll just take whatever you get,” I said hollowly, my mind still trying to figure out what I had done that had caused Percy to react like that.

Faintly, I could hear him relaying our orders to Adachi, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. Had I done something? Was it something I had done, or did Percy just not feel comfortable around me? I felt my stomach drop a bit at that thought. That was the last thing I wanted. I wanted Percy to feel like he could trust me, that he could come to me if he had a problem. If there was one good thing to have come out of this whole mortal fiasco, it was that I got a chance to be around Percy without Zeus breathing down my neck. That I get a chance to build an actual relationship with my son instead of whatever strange limbo we had been dancing in for the last few years.

I knew I wasn’t going to be winning any father of the year awards anytime soon, but I had hoped that the last few weeks we had spent together had shown that I wasn’t trying to avoid Percy. 

My thoughts were interrupted by the return of Adachi with a large tray of sushi balanced on one hand. She placed it on our table with a wide smile and a nod, before turning away to return to whatever she had been doing. Percy deftly picked a couple of the tightly wrapped rolls up with a pair of chopsticks, popping the pieces into his mouth with a satisfied smile. 

“Ah, I was starving,” he said, already plucking a couple more from the tray.

I bite back a smile at him, instead picking up a pair of chopsticks and breaking them apart. I examined the array of rolls in front of me before settling on starting with the maki rolls. I popped the first roll into my mouth and relaxed slightly, letting out a sigh, the flavor of the sushi replacing the dry, gummy feeling that had been in my mouth for most of the day.

We ate mostly in silence, only occasionally speaking to ask for a sauce or condiment of sorts. I was still too wrapped up in my thoughts to be much of a conversationalist.

I wanted to be in Percy’s life. I always knew that, but I hadn’t gotten the chance to when he was younger. I tried to justify it by saying that I was trying to protect them, keep Zeus unaware of his existence and not attract any more monsters than Percy was already. But in hindsight, I was just scared. Of course, I was scared of what Zeus would do if he found out. He proved me right on that front when he accused my twelve year old son who just learned of his heritage of stealing the most powerful weapon in existence, but what I had truly been afraid of was Percy. 

I knew of Thalia’s existence at that time, and even at the age of three she had already had many near death experiences, god or monster. I was afraid of what would happen to Percy if something finally caught up to her. I never wanted the weight of the prophecy to land on his shoulders. I never wanted him to have to bear that weight, the weight of simply being my kid. He deserved better than that, Sally deserved better than that. So when fate had finally caught up to Thalia and she was turned into that tree on Halfblood Hill, I knew what that meant for my son. Or at least I thought I did. I had always assumed Percy was destined to die, and that had scared me off from interacting with him even when he knew about me. I didn’t want to hurt myself. I knew if I got to know him, I would get attached, and I didn’t want to have to deal with the pain of losing him when he died.

Mortals' lives were short, fleeting moments in the existence of a god. After he made it through the first great prophecy, I had thought that he had made it, that Percy was going to get to live out his full life, there was no more prophecy looming over him that would decide both of our fates, it was just up to Percy to make what he would out of his life.

At least that was what I thought until earlier today. Before Percy told me he had seen the fates. I don’t know what sort of sick, twisted joke the fates thought they were playing by appearing to him so early in his life, to make him guess when his impending doom would be. But they somehow had made it even more twisted by forcing me to be around him, to realize how much I truly loved him, how proud I was of him, and how incredible of a kid he was.

“Da-”

a sound snapped me out of my thoughts, but I couldn’t make it out. A faint buzzing was ringing in my ears.

“Dad,” I could hear Percy talking to me faintly across the table.

I forced myself to look up, blinking rapidly. My vision was hazy, and I couldn’t focus my eyes on his face. 

“Wha-” I choked out, breaking out into a coughing fit. My throat felt tight, like it was constricting in on itself.

I looked up at Percy, who was swaying slightly where he sat, not appearing to do much better than me.

“The food-” I gasped out as the realization hit me, “Someone must have drugged it-”

My eyes were swimming now, the plates on the table were multiplying, and I’m pretty sure the salt shaker was doing the worm on the table. The ringing in my ears only intensified, and I could feel bile rising in my throat.

Percy made a strangled sound from across the table, his hand thrashing out, knocking something off of the table and onto the floor with a crash.

“Perce-” was the last thing I managed to say before the world went black.

When I came to, the world was dark.  A door slammed shut behind me, causing me to jump in surprise. I looked around the room I was in frantically, I was in a small building of sorts, but I couldn’t make out much more. There were some windows lining the walls leading to the world outside, but no light was filtering through. I could hear the rustle of trees in a strong wind scratching against the structure angrily, and what sounded like breathing coming from in front of me.

“Poseidon,” a voice cut through the silence, causing me to snap around to face whatever had spoken.

“I need you to promise me,” The voice said, echoing around the room.

I let out a slight groan at the noise. I had heard this voice before, but who it belonged to was eluding me.

“Promise what?” I tried to question, but it came out as a whisper, the darkness around me swallowing my voice.

A long, dark figure stepped forward. Their figure was thin and wispy, almost frail looking, like one gust of the strong wind howling outside would snap them in half and send their top half catapulting into the sky.

I took a step backwards, attempting to put some distance between me and wannabe slenderman. Strange tentacle-like shapes of fog seemed to be coming from the figure, and I wasn’t very interested in huffing any ghost smoke today.

My heel caught something on the ground, causing me to fall to the ground in a noiseless heap, a sharp pain shot through me, my head screaming in pain. I could feel something warm and thick drip out of my mouth.

“You promised, Poseidon,” the voice growled, taking another step forward.

“Did I? Could you- could you remind me what that was? I say a lot of things.” I gasped out, bringing a hand up to wipe at the viscous liquid pouring from my mouth in globs.

I pulled my hand away from my mouth, inspecting the sticky substance on my fingers. It was a bright gold, a shock in the seemingly permeating darkness surrounding me and everything I did. My hand looked almost desaturated beneath the bright gold. Or maybe it just was.

I could feel something in the back of my head buzz in shock at the sight of gold. The substance seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. But whatever it was gave slendy pause.

The figure froze in his steps, his thin, wavering form emanating a feeling of anxiousness, but was quickly covered with that cloudy feeling that had been surrounding him since I woke up in this room.

A fit of coughs racked my body, causing me to double over, hacking onto the floor. Spatters of that golden liquid fell out of my mouth, staining the dark floor with splashes of gold.

Suddenly, a ray of faint white light burst through one of the windows, illuminating a few feet of the floor in front of me. The figure stepped forward quickly, falling to their knees in the ray of light, one of their freaky fog hands reaching out towards me.

I leaned back, desperate to not get touched by the tendril, falling back onto my butt in my attempt to put space between us.

“What are you seeing, Poseidon?” The voice echoed in a tone I would say was concerned if I was stupid.

I gave the slendy the fog man an incredulous look, confused as to where this was going.

“Uh, a demon ghost man?” I said intelligently.

The figure reared back, as if surprised that people don’t want to give you a hug when you look like you’re going to suck out their soul.

I heard him murmur a quiet curse, taking a step back from me and rising to his feet. I could see the fog start to swirl around the room, centering on dementor wannabe in the middle. 

The fog got thicker, more oppressive making me feel like I was choking on more than just the strange liquid coming out of my mouth. A strange whooshing sound echoed throughout the room, and I raised my hand in front of my face in a futile effort to ward off the smoke, squeezing my eyes shut.

Finally, the whooshing stopped, and the fog that had been choking me dissipated. Carefully, I cracked open my eyes to inspect the new room I had been transported into.

My eyes snapped open as I saw the room around me, that buzzing feeling of familiarity in the back of my skull returning. I was in a throne room of sorts still keeping with the dark emo theme— but much less horror movie and more edgy thirteen-year-old boy bedroom. 

In front of me was a large onyx throne, much too large to be conventional for any human, no matter how much the NBA wanted you. You would have had to be like ten feet tall for that chair to be even remotely practical. The throne was surrounded by a very concerning amount of skulls, some of them even being part of the chair itself.

“Nice house?” I said carefully, slowly rising to my feet in the center of the room, brushing off some of the dust that had landed on my shirt. 

“Where did ya-” a hacking cough interrupted me as I spat more out more gold. I wiped my mouth off with the back of my hand, giving the room a shaky smile. “Where did you get the decor?”

“Poseidon?” A voice questioned from somewhere in the room. It was the same voice as from before, but it was more clear, more human sounding. 

I whipped my head around to the source of the noise, my eyes locking on a pale figure, with long, dark hair.

“Slendy? That you?” I asked, coughing roughly. The back of my head buzzed louder, almost as if angry with me.

I got the feeling I was forgetting some pretty important stuff.

A concerned expression crossed the man's face, “what’s the last thing you remember before coming here?” The man asked.

I looked at the man blankly, confused as to how that had anything to do with him kidnapping me into his castle of darkness or whatever this was. The man stared at me expectantly, and with a sigh, I thought back to what I had been doing before being sent here.

I furrowed my brow in annoyance as I tried to think. I had been- I had been… Confusion overcame my annoyance as I tried to focus my thoughts. 

“I-” I stammered out. “I can’t remember,” I said, dread pooling in my stomach.

“Do you know who you are?” The figure asked.

I bit back my initial feeling of indignation at being asked such a stupid question, realizing there was a chance that I might not have the answer to that.

My fears were confirmed as I tried to think about any personal detail pertaining to me. Nothing came. I could remember my name, but that was it.

I looked up at the man, panicked, shaking my head rapidly back and forth, “I can’t- I can’t….” I trailed off, lifting my gaze to meet the dark one of the man. “I don’t know. “ I said sullenly.

The man’s brow furrowed in concern, “Do you not recognize this room?” he asked simply.

I started to shake my head at his question before pausing, “There’s like… a faint buzzing at the back of my head,” I answered instead, “I feel like I should recognize it,” I said, turning my head back towards the man, my brow knitted in concentration. “I feel like I should recognize you.”

The man nodded, a solemn look on his face, “You should,” he said simply, looking down on me. “This doesn’t bode well for the two of you, you’re starting to lose your memories.” 

A loud sound crashed through the room, causing the man to snap his head around looking at something I couldn’t see. “You need to accomplish the mission of the fates quickly, brother. Or there might be lasting effects.”

I felt my body go rigid in shock.  “Brother?” I said surprise flowing through me. I was related to the ghost man? I had a brother?

I could see him tense before me, muttering a curse under his breath in some language I didn’t understand.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he sighed quietly before collecting himself, “remember what you promised, Poseidon,” He said finally, turning around with a swish of his foggy tentacles- no, robes. They were robes now.

“Promised? What did I promise?” I questioned desperately, panic flowing through my body as my apparently brother walked away. I could feel my head spinning, I was starting to feel dizzy. I could feel more of that bile rising in my throat.

“You’ll remember when you wake up,” The man said shortly, turning around to face me one last time. 

With a grimace, he waved his hand across his face, the fog returning.

I could feel my vision start to fade, my head felt foggy again.

“Wait-” I managed, feeling my body fall to the floor.

The last thing I saw was a bright burst of light, and then everything went dark.

Again.

I awoke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright, yanking at something behind me. I gasped for air, hoping for cool, clean air, but was only met with humid, dank smelling air of a cellar.

I snapped my mouth shut, not inclined to keep gasping down the gross air, and looked around. I was in a dark room, again.(what is with me and waking up in smelly dark places?) but it was a sensibly dark room. I counted my blessings.

I could feel the cool touch of concrete under me, and the rubbing of robes on my wrists behind me. My head was still ringing, and I could feel blood trickling down my chin. But there was no appiritions, and I definitely knew who I was this time.

I closed my eyes, trying to regain my composure and center myself. I remembered my dream(vision? I don’t really know the difference.) and the foggy man—who was in hindsight 100% Hades, that asshole—telling me about a promise. 

Ah, right. I can remember it now. Just before we left camp I had promised Hades I would do everything I can to try to keep Nico out of this quest. Hades had practically begged me, citing that he just wanted Nico to have time to be himself and not be in life threatening danger for once. I had agreed readily, feeling for where he was coming from. I felt the same about Percy.

Percy.

The semblance of calm I had managed to dredge up disappeared instantly, quickly replaced by panic. I frantically looked around the room, looking for any sign of where Percy might be.

Just when I was about to fall into another bout of panic, I felt something shift to my right, and heard a low groan sound from below me.

Relief coursed through my body, and I turned my head to look down at Percy, just coming to consciousness, and collapsed in a pile right next to me. 

“Where are we?” He questioned tiredly.

“I don’t-” I started to answer, but was interrupted by the sound of a door opening.

I could make out the forms of two people walking through a door, one of them was holding a clipboard.

“Polybotia will be pleased with this group,” one of them—a girl, it sounded like— said.

“Did you already do the blood test on the new two?” the other one asked.

“The ones Adachi-san sent us? No, not yet. I was just about to do that.”

I exchanged a look with Percy at that.  It appeared Adachi was the one who drugged us. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted an old lady. The witches to actually just a sweet old lady ratio just got a little worse today.

“That little-” I was interrupted by an elbow to my ribs, which were definitely at least bruised by how much it hurt.

I let out a low hiss of pain, but bit my tongue, understanding that I should probably shut up.

“Did you hear that?” The girl asked.

“Huh? Hear what?” the guy responded.

“Nevermind, it was probably nothing. Are we still on for lunch later?” 

“Course. You should probably get those samples so we can make it on time.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you later then.”

The guy left the room, the door slamming shut behind him. 

The girl rounded the corner of a small wall of boxes, her head still down, inspecting something on her clipboard. 

“What are you doing?” I heard Percy ask from beside me through gritted teeth.

The girl startled, her head snapping up and dropping her clipboard.

“Shit,” she muttered, glaring at us. “Well, I guess you're awake, so I'll put you guys under again too.” she murmured angrily.

“What does that mean?” I asked hotly.

“What do you think it means, genius?” She said, giving me an incredulous look, “I’m going to whack you over the head and go to lunch. That’s what it means.” She said, shaking her head.

She bent down, picking up her clipboard and pulling a pen out of her pocket to jot something down on the paper, “Not, children of Athena..” She murmured, tucking her pen back into her breast pocket when she was done.

I heard a gasp of indignation to my right, and I screwed up my face in offense.

“Wow, great bedside manners, huh?” I said snappily. “You work as a grunt for an illegal trafficking ring, Sweetie. Were you not qualified for flipping burgers?”

I got a glare for that, the girl pulling her lip up into a snarl, “You don’t know how to shut up, do you?”

“Sorry, I must have skipped that class in dumbass 101,” I snarked.

“Was probably too busy eating glue,” Percy added from beside me.

I nodded empathically, “Too busy looking for the supply closet for glue and somewhere to hide your body.”

“I hope you get a concussion,” She murmured, dropping her clipboard and pulling out a baton from her belt and walking towards us.

“Wait!” Percy said from beside me, causing her to freeze. 

“What,” she said.

“When it’s my turn to be hit over the head remember that I didn’t say anything,” he said, wearing a shit eating grin, “I would still like to go to college.”

I let out a snort, as the girl mumbled curses under her breath.

And then I was hit over the head and blacked out for like the third? Maybe fourth? Time today.

Yay.